Directed by: David A. Prior
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Ted Prior, Troy Donahue, Fritz Matthews, Dawn Abraham, and William Zipp
A big thank you to Sutekh from Explosive Action for providing us a copy!
Night Of The Kickfighters (1988). Clash of the Ninjas (1986). American Kickboxer 2 (1993). Deadly Prey. The upper echelon of action movie insanity. If you’ve seen any or all of these movies, there’s no going back. You’re a changed person.
Mike Danton (Prior) is just an average guy, we think at first. He just wants to get five more minutes of sleep in his waterbed and take out the trash in the morning. Without warning, he is kidnapped by a team of mercenaries and driven 75 miles southeast of Los Angeles into the forest, where said Mercs hunt live prey as training exercises. The nefarious Col. Hogan (Campbell) just wants to drink his New York Seltzer and run the operation from behind his desk, but his corporate benefactor, Michaelson (Donahue) is breathing down his neck for results. So with the help of his right hand man, Lt. Thornton (Matthews) and right-hand woman Sybil (Abraham) he focuses all his energy on his former protege Danton, who is killing off his entire squad.
Released into the wild like an animal, with only his wits, his mullet and his undersized white shorts, Danton makes mincemeat of his fellow meatheads. But help is on the way in the form of his concerned wife Jaimy (Tara) and her Father (Mitchell). Jaimy’s Dad is a retired cop with somewhere between 27 and 30 years on the force. He infiltrates Hogan’s training camp to find out what’s going on with Danton. Additionally, his old ‘Nam buddy Jack Cooper (Zipp), a former worker for Hogan, switches sides to the good guys to help out Danton. Will Danton - or you - ever be the same?
Far from your average AIP jungle slog, this is far, far funnier. And better. There are at least three solid laughs in the first two minutes of the movie alone . The tone is then set for what has to be the best AIP movie. Why can’t they all be like this gem? Almost every line of dialogue (which is mostly in soundbite form) or even the faces the characters make are a “laff” riot. How did they not know it was this funny while they were filming it?
Far from just a “homage” to First Blood (1982) and The Most Dangerous Game (1932), Deadly Prey is an entirely different beast. We’re just sort of thrown in to the plot, seemingly as random as Danton is thrown into the forest. It is a pretty big coincidence that a guy the mercenaries chose at random just happens to be Hogan’s former student and “the best”. But it’s a joy to watch Danton turn the tables on the baddies, and, looking a lot like a caveman and basically in the nude, display his survivalist abilities. At least they must have saved on their wardrobe budget, as, even when he eventually gets the chance to, Danton still steadfastly refuses to wear a shirt.
Deadly Prey would make an interesting double feature with Masterblaster (1987). It also features one of Steve McClintock’s best scores, and his sensitive end-credits tune “Never Say Die” musically is antithetical to the violence that we just saw, but that’s all part of the illogical fun. We tried to avoid describing specific scenes because you must see them for yourself.
Silly, ridiculous, hilarious, and full of laughs and action, for an entertaining night of wildly fun viewing, it’s basically impossible to top the modern-day classic Deadly Prey. See it!
Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett
