Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 3:5	Budget Low

So this is what happens when D.H. Lawrence is re-imagined by Dr. Who enthusiasts.

As the movie opens we are introduced to a faceless alien who attacks a couple making out in the woods. In a shockingly original move, the alien kills the couple and takes on the appearance of the male. He then wanders around for a while and ends up at the residence of Jo (Sally Faulkner "Dr. Who" in 1963) and Jessica (Glory Annen, "Spaced Out", "Felicity") who are living in a nice English manor with a lot of land. Inexplicably he moves in with the girls who must assume he is an escaped lunatic as his behavior is quite odd. The girls flirt with him and convince him to dress up for a party, unfortunately the dress up actually involves a dress. Jo expresses her hatred for a fox that is raiding their henhouse and so the alien transforms into something like a werewolf and kills it for her. Jessica eventually realizes that Jo is being more than a little over protective when she discovers that her last boyfriend didn't leave her voluntarily. Jo killed him and disposed of the body but left behind most of his possessions. After nearly drowning, the alien decides that the Earth can be conquered and makes his report to the mothership.

D. H. Lawrence wrote "The Fox" in 1923. It was quite scandalous at the time with its rather frank descriptions of lesbianism and relationships in general. The two women in the novella react to a man invading their personal space in a rather odd and violent way. In "Prey" instead of a normal man, the couple's home is invaded by a space alien who is assessing the planet's ability to defend itself against a space armada. No really. I'm serious. And not only that under certain conditions he turns into something like a werewolf. I say something like a werewolf because the budget of the film was not large enough to cover the cost of a full makeup job, so he ends up looking a lot like Eddie from the Munsters. While I have never read the original novella and it has been quite a while since I have seen the movie version of "The Fox", there are a lot of copied scenes. Some of them are quite unintentionally funny. The filmmakers chose to use the pond on location for a pivotal scene. One of the girls is kind of interested in the alien while the other is threatened by his presence. In the movie "The Fox" Paul cannot swim yet somehow manages to fall into the deep pond on the girl's property. Ellen (the threaten one) sees him drowning and eventually realizes she must save him. In "Prey" the alien can't swim either and blunders into the pond which is really not much more than a big mud puddle. Where Ellen in "The Fox" is trapped in a moral dilemma, the Jo in "Prey" must be wondering why the guy just doesn't sit up. The puddle is less than 2 feet deep and here is an alien advance scout fumbling around looking like Bela Lugosi in "The Bride of the Atom".

I've always envisioned that the screenplay for this movie was written by a guy who was reading Lawrence and watching Dr. Who (Prey was filmed during the Tom Baker era) at the same time. The aliens are hardly different at all. They do have the rather fortunate ability to change back and forth between their normal appearance (red eyes, pointed teeth and a dog's nose) to looking perfectly human. There is no body transformation, he does not seem to get bigger or more muscular. Based on the fact that he has sex with Jessica, I'd say that his race is nearly identical to human. We are treated to the usual antics including the "fish out of water" gag where the alien doesn't quite fit in but everyone pretends not to notice. Apparently he is a scout from an advanced race that is debating whether or not to conquer the Earth. So naturally he spies upon a couple of lesbians who dress him up like a flapper. When one of the girls expresses concern about the local wildlife, he kills the pesky varmit for her. Why worry about little things like weapon capability and the ability of the Earth's space ships? That damn fox is killing chickens! Occasionally our guy sneaks away to change back to his normal form and check in with the armada. During these conversations he assures his bosses that the Earth will be a pushover. Based on what? I haven't a clue. He has seen less than 10 people including a couple of English Bobbies, not much to form an opinion on but still this is an advanced race so perhaps he is more perceptive than I am.

Jo assumes that Anders is actually an escaped lunatic and hints that she herself has escaped from the same asylum. Perhaps the reason that Jessica does not think Anders' behavior as being too odd is that she is used to Jo's very erratic behavior. In fact, when Jessica learns that Jo killed her former boyfriend she pretty much takes it in stride. No real panic or threats to call the cops. When Jessica makes even small attempts to leave, Jo goes off the deep end and threatens her. So bringing up something like a murder may be a bit more than Jessica wants to deal with.

Glory Annen plays the naive girl who is under the protection of the older Jo. Glory was never much of an actress and got most of her roles because of how she looked naked. This is no exception. Her voice was not bad at conversational volumes but when she raised in fear or anger, it acquired a quality similar to nails on a blackboard. Unfortunately this script called for her to yell and scream a lot. Depending on your tolerance for this level of painful sound, it is a make or break point. You do have to wonder about Jessica's motivations here. It sounds like the big house belongs to her family and Jo is taking advantage of her generosity. There is the feeling that Jessica does understand this and does try to gently break away from Jo. After getting involved in a fight with Jo that results in Jessica getting knocked unconscious, Jessica decides that it is over between them. So she immediately has sex with the alien. This does not turn out well for her as post coital cuddling among his kind apparently involves ripping out throats. The alien then goes after Jo and finds her digging a grave that she intended for Jessica. Ironically she ends up in there herself. Anders then reports back to the mothership that the Earth is ripe for takeover and that the inhabitants are easy to kill and high in protein. He does not mention if they taste like chicken.

If you have not seen "The Fox" you may not get the same enjoyment out of the film that I do. There is no real suspense and the special effects are terrible. Glory does get naked a few times but I am not sure if I would watch the movie just for that. Still it is an amusingly bad movie and there are enough unintentionally funny scenes to make it a worthwhile view. "Prey" is also known as "Alien Prey" which makes no sense at all. The aliens aren't the ones getting chased around and snacked on.

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