(1978)
1
Fred Beldin
Alien Prey is a dismal, unsettling film that is difficult to watch even for exploitation fans who might enjoy the explicit gore and gratuitous nudity on display. Though director Norman J. Warren keeps the action moving at a dreamlike pace, every moment is imbued with tension, so that even idyllic walks through the forest are shattered by bitter, jealous bickering. Particularly grating is Sally Faulkner, who has an unnerving tendency to shriek and scream in nearly every scene, until the viewer dreads seeing her walk into the room. The fact that the three main characters are the only ones with any real screen time adds to the claustrophobia, as pregnant silences make way for vicious arguments and desperate jealousy is trumped with cannibalism. No one in Alien Prey is happy (even the teenagers in the film's first scene are arguing before the alien attacks) and their deaths seem like appropriate punctuation at the end of a miserable sentence, giving the film a grim tone of hopelessness that few will derive pleasure from. Given the occasional art-house pretensions (slo-mo sequences, a woozy cross-dressing scene), it's possible that there was more on Warren's mind than just another monster show. Whatever his world view might be, the result is an ugly vibe that exceeds the power of the film's gruesome onscreen violence.
cast-crew for Alien Prey on AllMovie
Alien Prey (1978)
