Prey Parent Guide

Instead of the usual night at a pub with an inadvisable amount of alcohol and some strippers, Roman (David Kross) has decided to make his bachelor party a hiking trip in the forest. Although his friends likely would have preferred the pub, once they get out into the wilderness, everyone seems to be having a good time – until, that is, a bullet cracks out of the trees and hits Vincent (Yung Ngo). With their car sabotaged and disabled, the party must find another way to escape the woods without drawing more fire from the hidden sniper. One small problem: nobody is quite sure which way is out…

The trick with thrillers like this is maintaining tension. Unfortunately, since I hated nearly all of the characters (who managed to die in ascending order of my dislike, more or less), there wasn’t much suspense to be had. With a few exceptions, they were a fairly obnoxious bunch and I was essentially rooting for the sniper about half the time. Not a good sign for that tension.

What’s worse is that I couldn’t shake this uncanny sense that I’d seen this before. That’s because I basically have, since this is a remarkably similar film to Red Dot, another Netflix original which came out earlier this year. The only substantive differences are the hikers in that film are a married couple, not a bachelor party, and the film is Swedish. They aren’t completely interchangeable, but it’s close enough that there’s not much point watching one if you’ve seen the other.

Content issues are also fairly similar, with most of the concerns revolving around profanity and violence. As you might expect from the plot summary, a number of people are shot and a good deal of blood is seen. Apparently, that’s an occupational hazard of wandering around forests in northern Europe.

All that said, if you haven’t seen Red Dot, you might not hate Prey. Especially if you’re less picky about likable characters than I am. While this isn’t the kind of movie you’re going to want to watch with your kids, adult genre fans might manage to have a good time. I mean, it beats getting shot in the woods…almost.