Deadly Prey (1987) User Reviews

Utterly fantastic

[sinister_prog · 6/10 · 27 March 2014]

Although the plot of kidnapping humans for target practice has been done a million times before (and still is), no movie comes as close to the entertainment value of this. Here, bad army guys inadvertently kidnap Mike (unofficial middle name : Dramatic Casio Chord) Danton, a Vietnam vet played by male model Ted Prior. And after letting him loose in the forest armed with only a sawn-off pair of levi's and a particularly offensive mullet, Mike turns the tables on the most inept bunch of soldiers.

You will laugh! You will laugh again! You can feel the tension gripping you to the couch as the next bad guy positions himself into an easily ambush-able place. You will see Cameron Mitchell deliver his best speech ever. You will see tiny grenade explosions hurl people several feet through the air. You will never see a more lethal twig in your entire life or more effective camouflage from a handful of leaves. The one-man army action movies from the 80's (think along the lines of Commando/Rambo) may have been awesome at the time and despite aging, entertain today in the same way a piece of well-matured piece of cheese tastes more delectable than something eaten fresh from the dairy. Deadly Prey is no exception, the only difference being budget. And acting. And direction. But it's still something to relish. Most films like this are best enjoyed over a few beers. Here I would recommend a few crackers and a nice bottle of chardonnay to truly honour this cheesy experience. Cheers!

A Great Sunday Morning's Entertainment!!

[anxietyresister · 5/10 · 5 March 2006]

Wow, this an oddity, make no mistake about it. It's typical: One minute you're at your house with your lovely lady wife taking the trash outside, next you're knocked senseless by a pipe to the back of your skull. Before you know it, you're being forced to run topless and shoeless through a forest pursued by a bunch of mercenaries in a private army who are using you as training practise. Fortunately, you're more resilient than most, being an ex-military guy yourself and in an elite faction, at that. So, with your 80's blonde mullet and your abs the size of Canada, you decide to turn the tables on your pursuers by setting up all kinds of homemade traps that anyone who hasn't seen Rambo would fall into. Will you ever get out of there alive? Can you find the person responsible for your kidnap and beat seven bells out of the scumbag? And is there a way to make worms and rats over a campfire taste any better? All will be revealed (Well apart from the last one perhaps..)

Where do I start with a movie as bizarre as this? What could have been a run of the mill action film, is transformed into something else entirely thanks to the increasingly strange proceedings. Considering these are supposed to be trained soldiers, don't they get dragged into bushes and stumble over tripwires rather easily? And why the hell is the Commander sending his men to their deaths for the sake of catching just one guy? Also, what is the point in the role of the ex-police chief father-in-law of the hero? I could also bring up the unlimited supply of bullets, and the hilariously fake explosions, but that isn't what caught my attention.

No, what I want to talk about is the ending, which features much sadism and has more than one surprise death. This sudden bloodshed is combined with a wholly inappropriate love song over the credits, which makes it a very surreal experience indeed. In fact, there is almost enough weirdness here for it to qualify as a parody, if it didn't take itself so seriously.

However, in spite of all that it manages to entertain despite itself by giving us lots of juicy scenes of shootings and maimings. The death toll is extremely high too, so expect non-stop action involving everything from knives to missile-launchers. When it had finished, I didn't feel I had wasted my time, and even admired it in a way for concluding in such an uncompromising and unpredictable fashion. 5/10 from me, and certainly worth seeing..

This is firmly in the so-bad-it's-good category

[AlsExGal · 4/10 · 29 April 2023]

A group of para-military mercenaries kidnap unsuspecting people off the street in order to hunt them in the forest as part of their training regimen. The mercs make a fatal mistake when they unknowingly grab 'Nam vet and Special Forces-trained tough guy Mike Danton (Ted Prior), who proceeds to lay waste to their ranks. Also featuring Cameron Mitchell as the hero's father-in-law, David Campbell and Fritz Matthews as the chief villains, Suzanne Tara as the damsel-in-distress, and Troy Donahue (!!!) as a corrupt senator.

This is firmly in the so-bad-it's-good category, with a low budget accenting the film's overly ambitious aims. Prior is a sight to behold, with his muscle physique on display for much of the film as he runs around in jean-shorts and that's it, except for the occasional small tree branch he drapes on himself as camouflage. With his blond mullet haircut and a laughable intensity, he's very entertaining, if not actually for the intended reasons. The film is very brutal, with lots of killings, a sexual assault, and some dismemberment. It's produced so ham-handedly though that it's unlikely to offend.

Hilarious action sequences

[NISLON · 19 August 1999]

Mike Danton is an ex "military strong man" who has retired. One morning he is kidnapped by a mercenary-group who wants to use him for target practice. They let Danton escape through the woods, wearing nothing but his underwear so they can hunt him down and kill him. But they didn´t count on Danton to be...the DEADLY PREY. This movie made me laugh like crazy. It´s RAMBO meets SURVIVING THE GAME without a budget (or a script). The action is so badly edited and coordinated and the acting is terrible (especially Ted Prior as the pumped up Danton). Still it makes you laugh just as hard as any great comedy, though it is clearly not supposed to. I recommend it highly, for all the wrong reasons.

An absolute classic.

[plantostickthat · 1/10 · 26 December 2001]

I would be one of the few people who owns a copy of this classic. But i dont only own 1, i actually own 2. Its THAT good.

Well, when i say good, i mean bad. But i will try to do a thorough review. I even watched 'born a ninja' which one of the other reviewers here mentioned, to compare it to this. And born a ninja is actually worse, but not quite as funny.

And is this ever funny. EVERYTHING about this movie is poor. EVERYTHING. The plot is absolutely stuffed (note the 'you'll need to keep me alive if you want to know where to find your wife'). EVERY action sequence is stuffed too. Our hero danton is more than a hero; he can stab people with twigs, take 3 bullets in the heart at 50 cm away without even bleeding, and tie a rope up to a tree which, when an enemy steps on it, ties a knot around the enemies leg, picks him up, and throws him 50 metres into a bunch of spikes.

The acting is so bad it is impossible to comment on it, but it should have you rolling, especially dantons 'jump out of the ground and growl at the bad guy'. Oh yes, and the bad guys: somehow, it seems they resurrect themselves 5 times each in the movie. Perhaps it's just that there weren't enough actors, but in a movie of this calibre? i doubt that.

The 'plot' is about how danton was a soldier in the vietnam war, and now his colonel is hunting real people for training for his mercenaries. The colonel just happens to pick up danton, then danton fights back. This is just the excuse for a rambo clone, with most of the movie being danton slaughtering soldiers. And i really cant explain the plot any more cos there is nothing else to the movie. It still rocks though.

What else could be wrong you ask? Dont get me started. Hand grenades which actually go off at the actors' feet because the explosion is the size of a match.Scenes where there are 5 people chasing danton, then the camera cuts away and back and there are 7. The way that every time danton loads the grenade launcher he is against the same background even though he is in completely diffrent locations. And the worst part is when danton pushes the plastic boulders onto the enemies, and one enemy is completely untouched by the boulders, so he doesn't know what to do so he half heartedly dies without even being touched. It's ridiculous!!!

But funny. Very, VERY funny. This is one of the few movies i can thoroughly recommend to everybody, cos if you dont find it funny, you are 1 in a million. And for the rest of us it's magic.

Low budget, cheaply done, tedious crap.

[sunznc · 1/10 · 23 February 2016]

Are you a man? Do you have frosted hair? Do you sleep in very short, denim cutoffs? Yes? Then this is the film for you. Because Ted Prior does.

Ted Prior posed nude in Playgirl and that worked for him because he didn't speak, didn't have any lines. Here? We are tortured by not only his bad acting but the bad acting of the rest of the cast. That's not the worst of it though. We're also subjected to bad sound, bad editing, horrible dialog and a tedious, relentless 88 minutes of men chasing other men and pretending to be blown up by low budget grenades and gun fire. But the acting isn't just bad, it's PAINFUL!

Please don't waste your time on this. Your time is valuable. We're here for such a short time. You can't waste 88 minutes on something like this. Just watch Predator if you need something like this. You can watch it in short denim cutoffs.

So bad it's almost good

[johnnklaer · 3/10 · 11 May 2021]

Cameron Mitchell steals the film with his lines:

CM: " Friend or enemy?"

BG: "I'm a friend."

CM: "YOU'RE A LIAR."

*BOOM*

pretty lame all around.

[ksf-2 · 4/10 · 28 January 2024]

The rifftrax version of this film is showing on pluto channel! "someone" has kidnapped mike danton and his tiny little cutoffs, and dropped him into some woods... somewhere. This appears to be a training ground for hunting. Humans. Mike takes out many of his adversaries, even teaming up with an old friend. It's pretty awful. Some bad acting, cheesy sound effects, lame script. The rifftrax crew is doing a great job of pointing out the many flaws, so I won't repeat them here. It's currently rated 5.1 out of ten on imdb. Written and directed by david prior, ted's brother. Keep your eyes peeled for an appearance by troy donahue. He must have needed the money! Donahue did some pretty bad stuff in the 1980s and 1990s. The sequel to this from 2013 is rated a whopping 4.3 out of 10. That one is on amzn and vudu.

A testosterone oozing craptacular!

[HaemovoreRex · 10/10 · 12 July 2007]

Fellow bad movie lovers, gather round my brethren for here there be a classic!

This is the story of evil Colonal Hogan who is utilising kidnapped innocent civilians as big game in order to train his bloodthirsty group of mercenaries. All is going fine in this cruel pursuit to until that is one day his men make the BIG mistake of kidnapping one Mike Danton who turns out to have been formally trained by Hogan and who furthermore makes Rambo look like a wimp!

Armed only with a pair of cut off shorts, his mightily muscled frame, his wits and a rather fetching mullet our man now proceeds to wipe out every single one of his hunters in a myriad of wild and wacky ways including breaking their backs against trees, impaling them with twigs(!) spearing them and setting them up in some decidedly grisly traps!

Highlights in this? Damn, so many to choose from but check out our hero's girlfriend for a start who must surely rank as one of the most outrageously stupid women in film history! After seeing her beloved knocked over the head and driven away at speed in a truck does she ring the police as any normal, intelligent person would do? No, she instead rings her dad! OK so he was an ex police officer but really! To be fair her father doesn't seem much brighter either! Does he get back up? No, he goes to the military training camp all on his own!!! In fact this film is absolutely riddled with such daft plot contrivances as to render one utterly speechless! Take for instance the fact that whenever our man kills one of the bad guys he never picks up their guns(?!?!?!?) Oh well, he was so damn macho I suppose he didn't feel he needed them until the end!

Back to cool scenes again now though and you'll simply marvel at a plethora of utterly terrible fight choreography, a Styrofoam boulder attack(!), a thoroughly appetising scene of delicious worm chomping(!) our man hiding up a tree with no foliage about three feet above his pursuers and them not spotting him (this dumbfoundingly daft scene just has to be seen to be believed!) and my very favourite bit at the end when our hero slices off an opponents arm with his machete before beating the guy to death with his own severed limb!!! To top it all off our man then scalps him!!!

Simply ridiculous stuff and all the more hilarious for it!!! If you have any shred of self respect then you simply must get hold of this film by any means possible!

"Them city folk'll eat anything." B movie gold.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 4 December 2015]

Beefcake "actor" Ted Prior (brother of writer & director David A. Prior) stars as Mike Danton, a former Marine, in this B level gem. It's about as far as you can get from high art, with a whole lot of completely inept action sequences and hilariously lame performances. Obviously owing a heavy debt to that familiar old plot of "The Most Dangerous Game", it's also clearly inspired by "First Blood" and its sequels, as well as "Commando".

Colonel John Hogan (David Campbell) leads a group of mercenaries. They're hired for a gig by an unscrupulous "businessman" named Michaelson (Troy Donahue). The thing about these guys, though, is that they like to have thorough training sessions before the actual missions. So they abduct guys like Mike, and chase them through the California woods. But they've made an extremely dumb move in selecting Mike this time around, and he's going to give them what-for in a major way.

Top billed Cameron Mitchell, who plays a former cop and the father to Mikes' wife Jaimy (Suzanne Tara), is very much just here for his name value. He has little to add to the plot. Instead, the action focuses on the studly Ted P., who for much of the running time darts around in short shorts. Ted may not be Olivier, but his emoting near the end still needs to be seen to be believed. Campbell is amusing as the money hungry villain, as is Fritz Matthews as Lieutenant Thornton, his main henchman.

"Deadly Prey" can boast a steady supply of violence and a respectably high body count, but it might not be gory enough to suit some tastes.

The absolute best moment of this epic occurs between Mike and Thornton. You'll know it when you see it, and may howl with appreciative laughter.

"Deadly Prey" is deliciously daft nonsense, with an ultra corny theme song to serve as perfect accompaniment.

Seven out of 10.

laughable

[richard__ · 1/10 · 10 August 2003]

Was unlucky enough to see this while travelling by coach across Africa. It was far and away the worst film I have ever come across. Deserves to be the #1 all-time worst ;-) No acting, no plot, very little speaking. Lots of ape-like grunting though, in this hopelessly unlikely film. An unwitting self-satire - you'll either laugh at it or cry.

The Greatest Worst movie i've ever seen!

[Leonard_Nimoy · 10/10 · 28 January 2006]

I first heard about this film 6 years ago. One of my friends told me about how good it was and how he used to own a VHS copy but that it sadly went missing. That was 6 years ago... 6 years later he found a copy on ebay. I try to avoid using clichés but it really *was* worth the wait! I haven't laughed so much in all those 6 years!

I've seen a lot of funny bad movies in my time, but this is definitely the one that stands out above the rest! In fact it's so good that it's made me write my very first IMDb review! Everything about this movie, the acting, the plot, the continuity...it's just so good, i mean bad, or do i mean good? This film deserves repeated viewings, i'm going to play it to all my friends as it should be compulsory viewing for all! Try and track down a copy!

Perhaps The Best Bad Movie I've Ever Seen

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 16 July 2013]

A mercenary leader sets up a mercenary army for hire . He trains his men by kidnapping men off the street and using them for live target practice . One day the group kidnap Mike Danton a former Vietnam veteran

If THE NAKED PREY and RAMBO took lots of speed and had unprotected depraved sex this would be the bastard offspring . DEADLY PREY is action film making at its most deranged . Do I mean is it bad ? Well try out this sample scene

Good Guy ( Carrying gun ) " Friend or enemy ? "

Bad Guy ( carrying gun and slightly frightened ) " Friend "

Good Guy " You're a liar " BANG

Made your mind up yet ? Words sometimes fail me as to how inept a film can be . The story itself doesn't make the slightest bit of sense such as mercenaries kidnapping people and using them as hunting practice . After all chasing an unarmed civilian who is outnumbered dozens to one isn't really going to hone military skills . It's also illegal . It's also been going on for some considerable time and yet the police seem unaware of it and you'd think someone somewhere might be suspicious of a small army . And if the hero Mike Danton served in Vietnam why is it he can't be a day over 30 ? Even if the film is from 1987 the last combat troops left in 1973 meaning he'd have been too young to have been a Viet Vet , especially in the special forces

Perhaps the fact DEADLY PREY is so incompetent on so many levels I gave it a far higher mark than it deserves . I should make it very clear that none of the points were awarded because much of the running time involves a dude with the body of a Greek God running round woodland wearing a pair of very tight shorts but everything else was a guilty pleasure where the good guy continually bumps off one bad guy after the other including a scene where he severs a bad guy's arm and proceeds to batter him to death with it and the totally dead pan tone of the film just adds to the enjoyment . If you enjoyed DEATH WISH 3 then you'll enjoy this movie big time . I know I did

Cam Mitchell's wost

[drystyx · 2/10 · 24 June 2012]

Cameron Mitchell once played in many good films, usually as a fourth or fifth character-Bombre, The Tall Men, Garden of Evil, usually WEsterns.

He's the epitome of the actor whose career went into low tide with cheap thrillers. Not all of them were bad, but they weren't "great" by any means.

Here, he plummets to the lowest depths.

The movie is hard to describe as anything other than a "so bad it's good" film. One can't imagine this film being made for any other reason. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and say they made this film to be funny.

But it it's not very funny.

We have what could have been a good idea. "The Most Dangerous Game", only the idea is made ridiculous by not having any sport. A mad man who thinks he's a mercenary for hire, trains his unit by kidnapping men, and telling them to run away unarmed from his well armed mercenaries.

Much of the humor comes from the fact that these super mercenaries, though heavily armed, are totally inept at killing any unarmed helpless victim, not because of "scruples", but because of ineptness.

Full of clichés, the movie become super tiresome after nearly an hour of tedious neck breaks and knife thrusts. It can only be classified as comedy, but it just isn't funny after the third time. And it seems we have this for about five million times. It's a "fast forward or go to sleep" movie.

Stop the presses for this most exceptional dose of low-grade Rambo exploitation imaginable!

[TheVid · 17 April 2003]

Since there were a fair amount of cost-cutter Rambo rip-offs, finding the ripest one isn't as easy as it would seem, but no doubt DEADLY PREY is a prime choice. It's a one-man-army saga made on the ranch in L.A., with mini muscle-dude, Ted Prior, stripped to his cutoffs and hunted for sport by a bunch of p***ed-off militia dudes. As misguided and inept a macho potboiler as one could imagine. Give me librium or give me meth!!!

Deadly Prey: So.....much......cheese!

[Platypuschow · 3/10 · 12 May 2019]

Back in the 80's there were lots of these, Rambo has a tremendous amount to answer for. What I mean by "These" is cheesy, testosterone fueled moronic gung-ho action flicks.

The cover says it all here, if you're looking for anything even remotely intelligent look elsewhere. This is literally 90 minutes of an ultra buff dude running around a jungle in his underwear being badass.

The "Plot" is a mercenary force who train their troops by kidnapping people off the streets, setting them off into the jungle, then hunting them. But I'm sure you see where I'm going with this, on this occasion they picked the wrong person *Insert dramatic music here*. That's right our lead is a former special forces something something, you know like they always are in every straight to VHS/DVD action movie.

The acting is dreadful, the plot is generic, it looks a combination of ugly and unintentionally hilarious and the whole movie is cringe inducing.

One for cheesy action fanatics only.

The Good:

Cheesy 80's action movie soundtrack

The Bad:

Some of the action is plain silly

Dreadful acting

SFX are laughable

Embarrassing. The most laughably pathetic Rambo rip-off of them all!

[Idiot-Deluxe · 1/10 · 3 December 2016]

David Winters Presents..... (don't have high standards...... or even modest expectations)

Getting right to this movie "Deadly Prey" is low budget amateurism from start to finish and an absolute clinic on how NOT to rip-off other action films, which when compared to this, are vastly superior in every possible way. In this case, David Winters and rest of the clowns behind Deadly Prey are obviously ripping-off Rambo: First Blood Pt.1 (the first Rambo film) and it simply doesn't get any worse than this. But hey, at least Deadly Prey is entertaining in a bad way and you WILL be laughing heartily at the ridiculous levels of ineptitude that this dreadful, direct-to-video, crap-fest fills your screen with, hell this is even a worse Rambo rip-off than Reb Brown's Strike Commando!

Kidnapped and forced to serve as prey, the name of the game: live-fire training of mercenaries and he's their target - but worry not, because this bemulleted bunch of jackass's can't shoot straight to save their lives and THEY become the prey. Bemulleted you say? That's exactly right, made apparently at the height of mullet craze in 1987, it would appear that over half the cast are sporting mullets, why I've never seen so damn many mullets in a movie, but it's Ted Prior, the star, who has the best mullet. As inept as these would-be mercenaries are, it would seem that -no amount of training- could make soldiers out of them and this movie, plays out like a plagiarized 90 minute run-through of movies we've already seen and for the record this is the most blatant Rambo rip-off ever made. In Deadly Prey you'll see several instances of them copying said film as closely as they could, in their own uninspired and amateur way, which is frequently complimented with a lot of over-acting from Ted Prior and several cast members. As I indicated earlier, this bumbling "B" is every bit as much a comedy, as it is an action film. Case in point, near the end there's actually a scene were Mike Danton a.k.a. fake-Rambo (with a peroxide high-lighted mullet) cuts off a guys arm and then literally starts beating him with it! Comic gold, I love it - and that's just one scene.

And if by any chance you haven't gotten enough of Ted Prior's faux Rambo bravado, don't worry, because there's a sequel, it only took 27 years, but... "Deadliest Prey" (such a clever title) is now out there for your viewing pleasure. But that's another story, one of the same I'm sure. The verdict is out. These are some really crappy movies and unless you get off on bad movies, I'd steer clear of Deadly Prey and it's sequel. However, on the other hand, if direct-to-video garbage is your thing then I could not recommend this more highly. In that case Deadly Prey is one of the holy grail's of terrible movies.

Deadly Prey is as lowly as lowly gets, where talking gas station rental quality here folks. Which now that I've mentioned it, puts an image in my mind, I'm distinctly seeing a regal relic from the past. I'm seeing a dust-covered, sun-faded VHS sleeve that's been spotted-up with several crusty rental stickers, some of which have long since peeled off. Sitting by itself, lonely on the bottom shelf of the rental rack, right next to the Twinkies and pork rinds, at some dilapidated gas station, just off a dusty rural road somewhere in Nowheresville USA. An image that hearkens back to the glory days of VHS rentals.

I can say with confidence that Deadly Prey is the cinematic equivalent of a continuously ongoing train derailment, just watch as it all unfolds before you eyes.

And for any viewers out there, I recommend that you watch the movie "Space Mutiny", it's a great example of what you should expect when "David Winters Presents"........

I was digging this and then the movie went too far.

[Aaron1375 · 4/10 · 24 July 2020]

This film was kind of a combo of Rambo and the deadliest game and it had action galore and while not good it was entertaining in its own strange way. I was going to give this film a five or possibly a six, then it went too far. I will get to that later, needless to say the film contains scenes of violence that are just a bit too much and then are made worse by what happens in the end to a certain character. There are good points to the film, mind you, as the action starts out fast. I was expecting more exposition before the game was afoot, but no, it starts fast and charges hard throughout. Not sure why a couple of scenes were even needed in this thing though.

The story, a bunch of mercenaries are hunting real prey, we get to see them take out a fat dude running through the woods because that is going to harden your mercenaries more so than war games with actual other soldiers. Well fat dude hits one guy and then the guy who was hit is promptly shot and after seeing this, I am thinking no one would want to be a mercenary for this outfit because the way they kill shows they would betray a person in a heartbeat. Well, they are ordered to capture another man and of course, it's the wrong man as they get someone who begins killing them methodically, but refuses to put on their clothes so we have to watch this guy do all his killing in his boxers. Then at one point they get the guy and the film could be over if the idiot in command just lets his second in command shoot him, but no, he wants to talk him into joining. Then if the idiot being hunted and is a badass simply plays along and acts like he is going to join he could have easily gotten loose and killed everyone at his leisure; however, instead his poor wife gets drawn into the mess and the movie went too far with her.

So how did they go too far? Well, the commander of the mercenaries brutalizes her and rapes her. Why? This will obviously do nothing but enrage the super crazy killing machine who is having no trouble with the dude's mercenaries who have worse aim than a stormtrooper. Then it looks like the wife is in the clear and the second in command shoots her dead. Not necessary, in fact, her character should have been done the moment her husband got kidnapped and not seen again until he returned home. I found the rape and then the kill totally took this film down a notch.

So, the film would have been okay had they not tried to keep pushing the boundaries of decency and it would have been completely fine if Cameron Mitchell was not in this thing at all. He adds nothing to the plot and does nothing of note but killing the guy who is paying for the mercenaries and is also disturbed by the rumors of the captain of the mercenaries killing people. Honestly, the mercenaries were so bad all that the hero needed to do was jack a gun and wait in the right spot and then mow them down, but he was too busy showing his skill with sharpening sticks.

What's Deadlier is That It's Not On DVD!

[Pretentious_crap · 2/10 · 5 June 2010]

Picture if you will a musclebound man scantily clad in short-shorts with a mullet hair style, who is fighting off foes in the jungle on his own using only a knife and what nature provides him. Hey, that's kind of like the Brock Samson character from the Venture Brothers Adult Swim cartoon! Indeed it is, but this film was made much before the cartoon, and was shockingly made to be a serious action flick! "Deadly Prey" is incredible as the main character Danton, our half-naked hero who's sporting hockey hair kills of the bad guys get more and more ridiculous as the movie marches on. You do not believe anything could top the last scene you just watched, but low and behold the next scene does, this leads up to the most ridiculous scene of them all which is at the end, and then you die from asphyxiation from choking on your own laughter.

It's a crying shame the VHS is so hard to find, and that this movie hasn't made it onto DVD. If the rights holders would get this shown in theaters where they show cult films and if they reprinted it to DVD, this film could attain "Troll 2" or "The Room" status. You can find this movie to watch on line at stagevu.com, it takes forever for the movie to load, but man is it worth it!

Gold. Pure gold.

[DanJensenMovieTalk · 10/10 · 21 December 2002]

I love this movie to the point that I found an e-mail address for Ted Prior's ex-wife and wrote to her. It thrills me to know that she passed on the regards of Ted's legion of Gold Coast fans to him.

Please, if anyone is reading this and considering watching 'Deadly Prey', drop everything, quit your job, divorce your wife, rent it out and enjoy what is arguably the finest motion picture ever committed to celluloid.

Action-packed and loads of laughs

[ctomvelu1 · 6/10 · 7 August 2010]

Thank God for youtube. I was able to watch large chunks of this 80s action classic there, and I had never heard of this particular beauty until stumbling across it on youtube. So, many thanks to youtube. This masterpiece of low-budget, rip-em-up action is a cross between FIRST BLOOD and ZAROff'S HOUNDS (THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME to cinephiles). A wacky Army officer is kidnapping people off the streets and using them as training prey for his jolly band of mercenaries. The mercenaries hunt these poor souls in a "secret" wooded area quite close to Los Angeles. I guess the cops and citizenry must all be deaf. Or they figure it's gang war and ignore it. The mercenaries make the monumental mistake of kidnapping a former special ops guy, who quickly proceeds to turn the tables on them. This muscle-bound, blond mullet-sprouting, underpants-clad superman (looking oddly like YOR HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE) manages to kill several dozen over-sized brutes before film fadeout. He does so in a variety of novel ways, including spearing one guy with what appears to be a twig and hacking the arm off another guy and then beating him to death with it. He never stops to retrieve any of the automatic weapons from his victims, instead improvising as he goes along. He is, after all, indestructible, much like COMMANDO. Proof of the pudding: After taking what appears to be a direct hit from a tank, he bounces right back, runs up onto the tank, opens the hatch and shoves a grenade inside. The fact that the hatch wasn't locked is interesting, but what's even more interesting is that he grabs the tank's long gun to climb up and off. The gun had just fired several rounds, and must have been very hot. But our hero never notices. As he charges the guy who will be beaten to death with his own arm, he takes three shots from the guy's weapon point-blank. Again, he appears not to notice. Some of the explosions are equally hilarious. Our hero pops a live grenade down one mercenary's trousers. When the mercenary blows up, we cut to an explosion from a completely different scene, possibly stock footage, with no mercenary in evidence. And when he drops the grenade into the tank, the explosion is also lifted from some other scene or movie. Oh, did I mention our hero can turn invisible? In one scene, he stands about six feet off the ground in a sapling while these big-time mercenaries race under him, never once looking up. We can see him, but they can't. DEADLY PREY is a lot of fun. As a low-budget Rambo clone, it's not half-bad. For old-time movie lovers, Cameron Mitchell in a William Shatner toupee has a small role as the superhero's father in law. I guess they couldn't get William Shatner. The hero, who I would love to see go one on one with Chuck Norris or Yor, is played by the brother of the film's director. A must-see bad movie.

Deadly film???

[dave1033a · 1/10 · 24 April 2005]

I remember seeing this film when i was about 10, one of my friends had it. At the time it was just a film as i was about 10ish and just thought of it as another action film.

When i look back now as a complete film buff this is quite a shockingly bad film. Whoever produced this film i am sure had a short Hollywood career. Although the lead actor seems to have done a few films according to IMDb, albeit i haven't seen any and don't really remember him too much.

Anyway, just to say that this film is really bad, in all ways it could be. I would love to see it again though :oD

What's not to love . . .

[bchelrprty · 10/10 · 14 October 2003]

"Deadly Prey" has to be one of the funniest action movies of all times, and this is not because it is supposed to be. It's hard to pick out a place to start with this movie, so why not from the beginning. This movie is much like "Surviving the Game" but has a much lower budget and much worse production value. Mike Danton is kidnapped by a group of mercenaries that just happen to be headed by his former Special Forces commanding officer, Colonel Hogan. WHAT A PLOT TWIST! What I really don't understand is why Danton killed so many of Hogan's soldiers, removing their automatic weapons from their dead body, but NEVER USING THEM TO KILL THE MERCENARIES TRYING TO KILL HIM!!! For such a great soldier, Danton doesn't show very good judgement.

Besides the typical amputation of a mercenary's arm with a machete, running a twig on through another mercenary's body, and a great movie score, composed of continual 'DUN DUN DUN' sound effects, Deadly Prey is chock full of many surprises, all which will leave you desiring to re-acquire the hour and a half you spent on watching this movie back. 3 out of 10 stars simply for the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" quality it has. I would also recommend "Born Killer" for any fans of "Deadly Prey" Happy watching.

So stupid it's funny.

[baylesst · 7/10 · 29 May 2000]

This movie is the funniest action movie ever. The best thing about it is that it is supposed to be serious. And Danton kills almost everyone the same(knife in the chest). He kills about 100 guys in this movie. And the final scene is great. I am still laughing from when he cuts off that guys arm and beats him to death with it. There are so many plot holes in this movie. Like, how does the father find the base so easily? Anyway, rent this movie.

Calling this a B-film would be a compliment

[Snowvember · 2/10 · 24 December 2016]

Incredibly low production values, zero quality control, scenes that look like a high school production.

It's a shameless Rambo ripoff with an even stupider plot. Random people (I really mean random) are picked off the streets and dropped in the woods, unprepared, unarmed and without any assistance whatsoever. They are then hunted by groups of heavily armed soldiers who outnumber them, are better trained and armed up the wazoo. This is all for training. But what is the point of this training? The civilians are completely helpless and hopeless. It's like shooting ducks in a barrel and calling it "army training."

Anyway, things don't go so well for this private army when one duck turned out to be not so helpless after all. He fights them off and so they have to up their game.

I don't want to spoil this film but the whole film is in the synopsis on IMDb. There's really nothing left to say.

It's really bad. Don't watch this expecting some funny Samurai Cop B-film laughs. I don't know how this film is rated so high. It's Birdemic-levels of crap.