Film Review: Prey (1978)

This film is also known as Alien Prey. A very strange film from a very strange director Norman J. Warren who made four films in the late 70’s and early 80’s that sort of disappeared after that. I’ve seen all four of those films. Satan’s Slave, Prey, Terror, and Inseminoid. He is known to be on the sleazier side of British horror, which is somewhat true. I’ve been writing lately about their having been almost a subplot about films involving the rape and impregnation of women by monsters and aliens, yeah Inseminoid is one of those. Norman J. Warren went there with Inseminoid. I’ve heard Terror described as imitation of Dario Argento’s Suspira, I don’t see the connection. The cool thing about Terror is that the main characters are involved with making porno. Satan’s Slave I already reviewed on here, that’s a Satanist drama. There are a lot of breast shots in Norman J. Warren films. His budgets on these films were miniscule. He’s weird I don’t know if he’s a wretched filmmaker or one of the best I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of filmmaker with stranger electronic incidental.
Prey is this film he made about a lesbian couple out in the countryside and an a killer alien whose disguised himself as a human that they’ve taken thinking his been in accident. It is sort of a double thriller because one of the lesbians is very dominant and controlling, obsessed with knifes. The alien is flipped out by basic things like parrots and water and seems to have a real affinity for eating live flesh. Periodically, he turns into a vampire looking creature. The butch lesbian seems like she could be potentially just as dangerous as the alien though, so you really just don’t know which was it’s going to go and it may not be where you expect it to. One of the lesbians turns out to be not so pure in her lesbian-hood, but you really just can’t change a killer alien! The alien does determine in the end that humans are high in protein and easy prey.
Again though, I don’t really know whether I like Norman J. Warren’s films. He’s sort of a curio. If you like very low budget filmmaking, his odd choice in electronic incidental music made on early synths, and a little bit of a sexually perverted streak, you might get a kick out of him.