Deadly Prey

• Released in the Philippines as Born to Kill
• Written and Directed by David A. Prior
• November 2, 1987
• Loose adaptation of the short story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell

A group of mercenaries kidnap people off the streets to set them loose on their secret camp so the students can learn to kill.

Social media clued me into the existence of Deadly Prey which was one of many testosterone dripping action movies released during the 80s hoping to cash in on the trend of action films of the time featuring larger than life characters. For every John Rambo there were a dozen Mike Dantons.

It is a very strong distillation of the 80s action film and many of the clichés contained therein. The problem is it doesn’t use them very well. Not that such movies were anything complex or sophisticated but if you’re going to do something then you need to do it at the minimum passable. Perhaps it’s the acting. Perhaps it is the fact that they didn’t even really do any interesting camera angles to highlight the action. I don’t know.

The action is built around a secret camp that trains mercenaries to kill people by kidnapping random individuals and setting them loose in the woods to be hunted. Our movie opens with the villains hunting down a guy with a dad bod that gets the best of one of them thus they must go out and find the meanest person possible. Clearly these mercenaries were bullied by a surfer dude in the past because that’s what they picked.

Our super tough guy Michael “Mike” Danton (Ted Prior) that’s taking on and taking out everybody that comes at him wears quite possibly the shortest of shorts that uncomfortably border on Daisy Dukes in this wannabe First Blood. He even uses the Rambo scream when firing a gun in the movie.

Turns out Danton is a former pupil of the man in charge of the training camp Colonel Hogan (David Campbell). How did Hogan figure out that Danton was responsible? Danton’s fighting style though Hogan witnessed no fighting. I guess the signature of the style is to leave bodies in the woods face down. That’s all the guy needs to look at when he figures out that it’s his former student.

Were they trying to be kinda funny by naming the villain Colonel Hogan? For those of you that don’t know there was a show called Hogans Heroes about a German WWII POW camp that was actually a base of operations for the Allies. It was a war comedy with hints of superspy. Hogan’s Heroes were led by Colonel Robert Hogan. When Deadly Prey came out the show would have still been in the public consciousness. Anywho…

I’m having trouble deciding which is worse: the acting or the sound. Nobody can really deliver a line and there’s a distinct echo when they’re filming in a room. When they’re filming outside everything sounds more than a little muffled. Sometimes it sounds like the actor is drawing out their words because they are trying to remember what they’re supposed to say. No money for a second take?

The acting is so bad in this movie that the actress’s exclamation of “He raped me, Daddy” is unintentionally hilarious. I feel terrible for laughing at it but at the same time this was not a competently done movie and it was really funny the way she said it.

Cameron Mitchell started out his career showing some real talent. How to Marry a Millionaire  is a good example of what he was capable of. By the midpoint of his career he was taking supporting roles in not always quality films. By the end he was doing garbage like this. Mitchell’s part in this has little to no effect on the main story. It’s one of those instances where the best-known celebrity they could hire was inserted to stretch out the movie.

While aiming for testosterone, Deadly Prey comes off as silly. David A. Prior borders on competent so it never quite gets to the accidental comedy like the unintended classic Samurai Cop. He took this very seriously when the budget required him to say “Screw it!” The music is often too sweet and romantic for an attempted violent action movie. This is something you might hear in a hotel bar of the time in the midafternoon. Not sure if this was composed strictly for the movie or they just cobble together some stuff they had access to.

What makes this watchable are the moments where they try really hard for the cool stuff and it fails miserably. One character dies when he gets his arm chopped off. It’s a slow motion cut that lacks blood. I don’t need it to be squirting like a bad Monty Python skit but a little drip is called. Then he gets hit with his own arm!

Deadly Prey gets close to being a guilty pleasure but misses the mark by a hair. For connoisseurs of bad movies this might be an enjoyable watch but if you’re looking for something that’s a good knock off of anything this isn’t it.