PREY

Tom Newman works on the construction of a dam in South Africa and decides to bring his two children and his new wife Amy with him to spend more time with them and to facilitate the already difficult cohabitation between his wife and the children he had with his first wife. While Tom is at work, Amy and the two boys go on a safari in the savanna. Forced to stop for urgent physiological matters, the little family and the guide accompanying them in the jeep are suddenly attacked by a pack of lionesses led by an imposing lion. The boy acting as the guide is immediately torn apart, while Amy and the two boys find themselves having to face the animals, the tension, and the lack of food and water. A threatening phrase opens the film: "Based on a true story"; the same phrase that dominates the poster, right below the imposing gaze of a lion. The overused and often misleading tendency to boast about the adherence to a news event of some horror films, probably to attract the curiosity of the voyeuristic viewer and to create in him that sense of terror generated by witnessing a potentially true episode. The fact is that the realistic-documentary tone with which the genre film is now filled often leaves the viewer completely indifferent. "Prey - The Hunt is Open" has suffered a lot of indifference: the indifference of the viewer who has not at all rewarded this horror and the indifference of the critics who, if they have not promptly panned the latest beast movie, have simply deigned to ignore it. But "Prey" does not deserve such indifference. The film directed by the chameleonic Darrell Roodt ("Van Helsing - Dracula's revenge"; "Yesterday") presents itself as an effective mix of at least two distinct genres: the family drama and the beast movie so dear to horror. The matrix is strongly dramatic, a double drama that is consumed both within the family nucleus of the protagonists, with the banal clash between the adolescent daughter and the young and attractive stepmother; and with what is shown outside the family with the attack of wild beasts and the hostility of the environment. The generational-family conflict probably represents the most unfortunate element of the film and, although it is indispensable to give psychological depth to two key characters (daughter and stepmother), it turns out to be a simple narrative ornament that has been proposed and reproposed in hundreds of other films, of any genre. The struggle for survival of the besieged family, survival from lions but also from the hardships of an anomalous and borderline situation that forces the protagonists to physical and emotional stress, succeeds in creating empathy towards the viewers. The use of lions as elements of eco-vegeance, although not original (remember the good "Ghosts in the Darkness" by Stephen Hopkins), is a choice little exploited and therefore capable of creating a different structure and development of the action from the usual. Although the film does not abandon the cheap scares of so much genre production, moments of cruelty are not neglected, with the beasts' meals, and a couple of jumps from the chair generated by the inevitable alternation of sound plans. Finally, worthy of note is the use of space conducted by Roodt who manages to create a widespread sense of agoraphobia given by the immensity of the warm savanna landscapes combined with a sudden sensation of claustrophobia given by the cramped interior of the car in which the protagonists are trapped. Special mention to a cast of good level led by the redivivus Peter Weller (Robocop) and the beautiful and talented Bridget Moynahan ("I, Robot", "Lord of War") who enhance a film that, although sometimes stereotyped and often imperfect, still manages to involve and give the viewer an hour and a half of suspense and relentless rhythm.