A few months ago, Everything Is Terrible! released a trash compactor (2 minutes of the best scenes) of the 1987 film "Deadly Prey," and it generated a buttload of interest from denizens of the interweb. Imagine if you made a copy of a copy of a copy of Rambo, but each time you kept injecting a healthy dose of steroids (I guess that's kind of what Rambo IV was like) and that is "Deadly Prey," only better! So after months of procrastinating, my friends and I decided to plunge into the world of mercenaries and manhunters running through the jungles of Southern California (Riverside to be more precise).
Now here's the good news—and there's only good news. As good as the trash compactor is, like all great shitty movies, "Deadly Prey" is so much greater than the parts of its sum. The plot basically covers a group of mercenaries that train in the jungle 75 miles southeast of Los Angeles by hunting people that they kidnap right off the streets. Because if you really want to know how best to prepare against trained fighters, it's best to first practice against couch potatoes and stay-at-home dads. Well, they get more than they bargained for when they drag in legendary Marine and Vietnam War veteran Mike Danton (Ted Prior, brother to director David A. Prior), the best soldier ever produced by the mercenary's head, Colonel John Hogan (David Campbell).
Over the course of days, Danton outwits, outruns, and outguns Hogan's men, all while clad in only only his tight-fitting cutoff denim shorts. It becomes a game of cat and mouse between the former teacher and student. At Hogan's side are the sadistic Lieutenant Thornton and bosomy Sybil. Not to be outdone, Danton has his buddy-turned-mercenary Jack Cooper (William Zipp) watching his back, while his father-in-law (Cameron Mitchell) is also on the search for him. What ensues are 88 minutes of the manliest jungle fighting known to, well, anybody. Rambo may have ripped out a guys throat and disintegrated people with machine guns, but I don't think he ever used a machete to cut off a guys arm and beat him to death with it.
As far as problems go, this film really has none that I can highlight here. Sure, it has the typical over-acting/bad acting, but it's all so good! The movie is all that it says it is or claims to be and then some. Watch the trash compactor but know that what you are watching is only the tip of the iceberg. This is a fine masterwork from the vault of shitty movies.
As an added bonus, the creators of "Deadly Prey" are hoping to make a sequel and need your help. They hope to raise $150,000 to start production on "Deadliest Prey," the direct sequel to "Deadly Prey." To pledge funding (and possibly star in the movie), visit their Kickstarter page.
My shitty movie rating: 10 turds out of 10. A forgotten classic.
