Deadly Prey (1987) Review

Oh I do like me a bad action movie. There’s nothing quite like that magic combination of incompetent (but sincere) film making, a low budget, and utterly deranged gung-ho action. Which leads on rather nicely onto the subject of today’s review, Deadly Prey – the sort of trash you’d find in a gas station VHS rack alongside endless American Ninja sequels.

Directed by David A. Prior, Deadly Prey is something like the billionth “adaptation” of Richard Connell’s 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game, only with far more mullets. The story kicks off with a nebulous military unit hunting down a man in the jungle. They take far longer than you’d expect to kill him, thus quickly establishing the main villains as fucking useless idiots. The reason for this is never fully explained, save that their part of a shady unit under the command of Colonel Hogan (David Campbell) – no, not that one.

Hogan orders them to continue their training, so sends them out to get some more fresh meat. So, with little time to breathe, the movie takes us off to suburbia where ex-soldier Mike Danton (Ted Prior) is abducted whilst taking out the trash. But believe me – he’ll take out all the trash by the time this film is done. Danton is stripped down to his Daisy Dukes, greased up, and sent off into the jungle where he’ll be hunted down by a cadre of mercenaries. I dunno man, a bunch of dudes chasing a mostly naked, muscle-bound due through the woods seems kinda gay if you ask me.

Meanwhile, back home, Danton’s hot wife Jaimy (Suzanne Tara) worries over his disappearance. Her main contribution to the plot? Calling her father – played by the eternally gruff Cameron Mitchell whose character feels like he walked straight off the set of Death Wish – and getting kidnapped by Hogan so he can plant his flag so to speak. 90% of her dialogue is the word “daddy”. It’s unintentionally hilarious, but let’s be honest: in a testosterone-soaked frenzy like this, a bit of decorative screaming is more than welcome.

As you’ll hopefully be starting to tell, the fun of Deadly Prey isn’t the plot – which barely exists – but the sheer ridiculousness of the action. Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) spawned a wave of “army of one uses guerilla warfare to kill hundreds of dudes in a jungle” action films. And this is no exception. Mike fashions weapons from whatever he finds lying around, turning the forest into his personal death playground. Mercenaries fall into pits, impale themselves on punji sticks, and go out in pyrotechnic fireballs that look like a high school science experiment gone horribly right. The kills become progressively more brutal: crushed skulls, snapped necks, and – in the movie’s most memed scene – an arm is chopped off and used as a bludgeon.

But what makes this film so bloody brilliant is that everyone plays it deadly straight, which makes it both hilarious and enthralling. This is despite the film’s obvious shortcomings. Handheld cameras shake through the foliage, fights wobble between choreographed and straight-up sloppy, and explosions are equal parts underwhelming and overzealous. But the sincerity carries it all. Everyone involved genuinely believed they were making a masterpiece of action cinema. And they totally were.

On release, it was just another Rambo knockoff to slot alongside random Chuck Norris trash like Missing in Action. But it has become a cult classic in its own right. This led to Prior returning decades later with Deadliest Prey (2013), which continues this film’s cliff hanger ending that no one imagined or cared would ever be resolved. I’ve not seen it, but if you absolutely have to know what happens to Hogan in the end, you do you. It’s hardly Othello though is it.

Deadly Prey is ridiculous, sweaty, violent, and fully committed to its own absurdity. It’s Rambo stripped of budget and dignity. Every flaw only adds to its charm. Watch it once, and you won’t ever forget Mike Danton’s steel thighs.