Deadly Prey


Sybil: "We've got to get to him before he gets the authorities!"
Hogan: "He won't do that."
Sybil: "What makes you so sure?"
Hogan: "Why the hell should he? He doesn't need any damn help. He's killing all my men by himself!"


release year: 1987
genre: cheesy action
viewing setting: home DVD, 12/26/15 and home VHS 8/30/98 (note that the DVD, which I bought from Amazon in 2015, appears to be a bootleg copied from VHS but with slick packaging...which is kind of appropriate)

synopsis: A mercenary army kidnaps people off the street to use in their training; when they kidnap the wrong guy (an elite ex-special forces soldier) they soon find themselves dying in large numbers.

impressions: This was bottom-of-the-barrel filmmaking. The acting was generally atrocious, there was little sense of continuity (night and day kept changing, and some scenes seemed to have no relation to others.) This movie reminded me of a cross between First Blood and Hard Target, except that it was done badly (and several years before Hard Target, to be fair.) Some lines and scenes were practically direct rip-offs! There were also logic flaws; I mean, what are the chances that the goons would kidnap a guy who turned out to be the star student of their evil colonel back when both were in Vietnam? Also present were stupid characters; example: when you knock out a lone enemy using a stick, GRAB HIS GUN! This...didn't happen, like a dozen times. In the cheese department, there were deaths by traps, rockslide, and RPG, and also Danton took out a tank and a helicopter during his antics.

body count: 64 total (52 killed by Danton, 7 killed by bad guys, and 5 killed by non-Danton good guys)...if you consider that all non-Danton good guys were killed by bad guys, and all bad guys were killed by Danton, then the transitive property could theoretically mean that Danton was the big fish who ate the medium fish who ate the small fish...what the hell am I talking about here...?

acting: Ted Prior, while possessing an impressive physique, didn't really have any acting to do here. The woman playing his wife sounded like a mouse on helium, and the guy who played her father appeared to be acting while on depressants. Every bad guy was a goofy, pathetic tough-guy wannabe; they looked nothing like the top-notch mercenaries they were supposed to be. Wearing a tank-top is not enough to make you a credible bad guy in a movie like this.

final word: Bad, but entertaining.

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