Prey

With “Prey”, independent director Norman J. Warren manages to stir a glimmer of interest in the viewer inured to C horror movies, despite the inevitable screenplay with more holes than Swiss cheese and chronic leaden pacing (the absurd lake scene could serve as the poster child for that problem).

Moreover, not wanting to drag in a big name like Pasolini and his “theorems”, this film bears a remote resemblance to Alberto Cavallone’s “Spell” (also known as “Man, Woman and Beast” – 1977), in which the unexpected appearance of an outsider stirs up erotic impulses, wreaking havoc by upsetting the existing group’s equilibrium. Just the notion of framing all this in a sci-fi/horror context is enough to arouse a moderate level of curiosity.

Cast: The monotone Stokes is an oddball alien suffering from echolalia and a lexical deficiency (but no problems with syntax!) who has a ridiculous canine snout which emerges when he unleashes his primordial nature. A more convincing performance is offered by the Sally Faulkner/Glory Annen duo caught up in an intense Sapphic predicament. Blood “flows” extremely sparingly.

Overall, Warren’s films strongly discourage potential sexual relations between humans and aliens (evidently one of the director’s pet themes), and in his next film, “Inseminoid” (1981), it’s always the former who fare the worst in such relations.