Sunday, January 17, 2010

Human Prey

James Tucker | 1995 | 72 min | US

Every few years a new title is declared the "Worst Movie Ever." For a while that movie was Plan 9 From Outer Space, then Troll 2 had a time in the sun, and now The Room seems to be the current popular choice for WME. But as anyone who truly delves into the depths of celluloid trash knows, those movies have nothing on the hundreds of no budget joints steadily being turned out by mercenary schlock merchants and painfully earnest filmmakers alike. This is the world from which Human Prey was born. According to an interview with director James Tucker, Human Prey was shot on Super VHS for $3000 over the course of five days. Oh, and the seventy-five page script was a first draft. Amazing.

After becoming the victim of a violent mugging, a Los Angeleno psychologist loses his grip on reality and begins hunting the criminal element of his city. This initially takes the form of revenge upon his muggers, but quickly degenerates into kidnapping hookers and killing black strangers who enjoy weightlifting. Finally, the psychologist drags whoever he can out to the California woods to hunt with a rifle while decked out in full Elmer Fudd getup. Surely, his vigilante spree will know no end. . . unless his prey can fashion some crude, but deadly-accurate arrows?

Though I do not want to give the impression that this plot is easily laid out for the lazy viewer. Oh no. All of this information is parsed out in nonsense scenes played by introduction-free characters. People come and go, as do sets, and it is assumed we are well enough acquainted with all of them that we do not require development or back story. Further, the film betrays a basic lack of understanding of psychology terminology, police procedure, and what hotel rooms look like.

That being said, I purchased this movie with nine others in a package called Action Arsenal and I intend to watch them all.

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