Space 1979: The one with an alien and lesbians

 

Title: Prey aka Alien Prey

What Year?: 1977 (UK release)/ 1978 (US release)

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Prototype/ Mashup

Rating: Dear God WHY??? (1/5)

 

In the last few installments, I’ve already spent a fair amount of time (especially in the Troll 2 review) commenting/ ranting about why “worst” movie lists aren’t that much help in finding material for this feature. The strongest evidence I can offer is that several of the most notorious and flat-out awful films I have viewed for this feature were ones I set aside, at least for a while, as either not meeting certain criteria (mainly a US theatrical release) or simply of no further interest. This time around, I’m back with a movie that shows more than most just how a movie ends up getting a bad review from me. The first and foremost fact to bear in mind is that this one actually intrigued me when I first heard of it. I then took a closer look and noticed a familiar name… and realized it was the same director responsible for Inseminoid. So you can’t say I didn’t warn you, I now present Prey, a British film about an alien who meets an LGBT couple. To quote a certain familiar franchise, whoever wins, I lose, because I had to watch this damn thing.

Our story begins, after a computerized credit sequence, with a woman awaked by a strange light. Another woman comes in to reassure her when she calls out, and she remarks that the light came from the sky. Meanwhile, we see a young couple ambushed by a creature that takes the form of the male victim. Soon, the visitor shows up at the home of the ladies we have already met, Jo and Jessica, who turn out to be lovers at least in the physical sense. The being sends regular reports to an unseen commander as he works his way in as a housemate under the dubious name of Anders. In the process, we see him revert to his natural form, a humanoid with sharklike teeth and a large, dark nose, when hunting human and animal prey. Despite the incidental body count, it looks like the creature is adjusting to life among humans, well enough that Jessica starts to treat him like more than a friend. As Jo’s jealousy rises, the problems in their relationship rise to the surface, and it turns out having a sentient predator on Earth could be the least of anyone’s problems!

Prey was a 1977 film by Norman J. Warren, a British filmmaker best known for horror/ exploitation films like the previous year’s Satan’s Slaves. The movie was reportedly produced and filmed in 10 weeks for under 60,000 pounds, with a number of scenes shot outdoors in a wooded area near Shepperton Studios. The movie starred Sally Faulkner and the late Glory Annen as the couple and Barry Stokes as the alien. The synthesizer-heavy score was provided by Ivor Slaney, who also composed music for Death Ship and the Warren film Terror. The film received a limited release in UK in late 1977 and in the US the following year. Warren went on to make 2 additional science fiction films, the sex comedy Spaced Out (also with Annen) and the horror film Inseminoid, as well as a number of “straight” horror and exploitation titles. Annen attracted publicity and scandal in the 1990s and early 2000s during to a high-profile separation from Ivan Allan, a businessman and horse trainer.

As outlined at the start of this review, this movie first got on my radar quite a while ago, when I ran across the title in a cheapie box set that included some other titles I considered for review. I didn’t get the set, but I continued to think on and off of reviewing it. I soon further determined that the only way to view it digitally was through a channel on Amazon, but held off on the necessary subscription. I came close during the “repeat offender” week, but bailed and reviewed Dungeonmaster instead. I finally went in when I was about to go over 70 reviews for this feature (one more milestone where I thought of ending it), with a little optimism that lasted about as far as the credits. By the end, I was very seriously debating whether this was in the category of too bad to review (see War of the Planets). Still, I had enough time and effort invested for the “sunk cost” fallacy to kick in, and this is simply not the kind one can watch and then walk away from in silence. It’s just the combination of incompetent and willfully offensive that deserves to be called out rather than ignored, and on a deeper level, it remains interesting just for what it brings to the subject matter. 

Moving forward, we can start with the science fiction part. Here, the movie is on solid enough ground to be forward-thinking, however intentionally. While the idea of a malevolent alien living in outwardly human form was hardly unique, this treatment is still ahead of several of the most noteworthy examples in cinema, particularly The Thing and The Hidden. It can be allowed some further credit for actually showing the creature at a potential disadvantage. Blending in with the natives clearly doesn’t come naturally for this alien; when he first makes prolonged contact, the ladies both assume he is literally an escaped mental patient. As the story continues, he ends up in clear danger several times, including a scene where he is apparently saved from drowning, and it’s never quite clear if this and other incidents are calculated bids for sympathy or a byproduct of ignorance, arrogance, or outright obliviousness. On this front, two things stop the idea from working. First, the reports to his unseen superiors are an unconvincing and unnecessary conceit; this definitely doesn’t seem like the kind of being that would invite others to its hunting ground, let alone submit to a paramilitary hierarchy. Second, the creature design is simply ludicrous. The effects are decent enough, especially given the budget, but there’s no getting past the nose, which makes it all look like a toddler dressed up as a puppy for Halloween.

On the other side is the real elephant in the room, the lady lovers. If there is anything on this or any other front where the movie deserves recognition, it’s that there isn’t a hint of bondage/ sadomasochist stereotypes, an especially tiresome fixation of pseudoprogressive media that traces easily back to the pulps of the 1930s. The film takes an extra baby step in the right direction just by offering two LGBT characters with clearly divergent personalities, even if it is ultimately on the same submissive/ dominant lines worn into the ground by pornography. However, it’s all entirely nullified by how dysfunctional these two are. It’s all well and good to show that the persecuted don’t have to be saints, but this couple is literally dangerous to each other and anyone around them including the evil monster. There’s only so long one can watch or hear them (and dear Logos, the voices) before any sympathy for either of them evaporates. Opinions about alternative sexualities then or now shouldn’t matter, they should not be together and never should have been.

After all that, I still don’t have the “one scene”, and I came close to drawing a blank. Fortunately, my train of thought brought me back to one particular scene, right about at the transition from the first act to the second. While venturing out of the house, Anders discovers that the police are looking for his earlier victims. Whether he could use his powers to camouflage is one more thing that isn’t clear, but wearing very British leisure wear certainly doesn’t help. Before he can retreat, he gets cornered by one of the officers, forcing the only straight-up fight between the alien and a human. The cop actually gets in the first blow, which clearly does some real damage. The creature rallies, however, quickly turning the tables with evidently superior strength. As his victory is sealed, the monster finally transforms and prepares to feed, leaving a grisly find for the next officer to arrive.

This is where I come back to the problem I raised above. The conceit that a carnivorous species could reach the level of interstellar civilization without solving their food problems was a non-starter, but the story doesn’t need it. The Predator could have been the equivalent of an accountant who took up bow hunting, and it still would have worked because the backstory didn’t really matter. What we clearly see here, however, is a being who can’t cover up even minor misdeeds and isn’t nearly tough enough to stand up to the kind of resistance that would assemble sooner or later. As with The Hidden, this gets me running my own thought experiment. Instead of killing random humans, eat the vermin, the stray pets and maybe the occasional homeless guy. Or, if you can adjust well enough to live among the natives, get a job at a morgue or a pound, where a steady food supply would just be a matter of eating what was going in the crematorium anyway. Better still, if you have technology centuries ahead of the locals, take out a few patents, then buy all the food you need. And that’s the problem with movies like this. It’s not they don’t have ideas, it’s that they’re made by people who never cared enough to develop them. For me, nothing is more offensive than wasting a good idea, which is why this gets the lowest rating.

Image credit VHSCollector.com.