The 1983 slasher film, The Prey, opens with a wildfire raging through the Rocky Mountains, destroying a community of people who lived in a cave.  32 years later, the only survivor of the fire (played by Carel Struycken, who would later be memorably cast on Twin Peaks as the “It is happening again” giant), wanders through the forest.  When he spots a middle-aged couple camping and tending to a campfire, the survivor snaps and kills them both.

The next morning, a van drives through the national park.  Inside the van are three young couples, Nancy (Debbie Thureson) and Joel (Steve Bond), Bobbie (Lori Lethin) and Skip (Robert Wald), and Gail (Gayle Gannes) and Greg (Philip Wenckus).  They are looking forward to a nice weekend of camping, sex, and mountain climbing.  The girls are especially happy when they meet the handsome local parker ranger, Mark O’Brien (Jackson Bostwick).  The couples head into wilderness, little realizing that they are being followed and watched by the murderous survivor.

Watching The Prey, I was reminded of why I don’t go camping.  I mean, I like looking at nature.  I like handsome park rangers.  There’s a sweet scene where Mark tells an extremely corny joke to a baby deer and it made me go, “Awwwwww!”  But seriously, I would never want to spend my night sitting around a campfire or sleeping on the ground.  Not only is the wilderness full of bugs but there’s always the danger of getting trapped in a sudden storm or some other natural disaster.  And I have to admit that I’m just not a fan of the way that people act while camping.  My fear is that, if I ever did go camping, I would end up with people shouting, “Go!  Go!  Go!’ at me.  If my camping companions insist on going mountain climbing, am I obligated to accompany them?  If one of them falls off the side of the mountain, that’s really going to ruin my weekend.

As for The Prey as a film, the plot is standard slasher stuff.  Attractive young people end up stranded out in the middle of nowhere and they are picked off, one at a time, by a monster who seems to take issue with anyone trying to have any fun.  That said, The Prey has enough strange moments to make it memorable.  With an 80-minute running time, The Prey is an oddly paced film.  (And yes, oddly paced does often translate to boring.)  The majority of the film is just made up with footage of the three couples walking through the forest and having conversations that were reportedly improvised by the cast.  (Gayle laughs as she talks about a time that she nearly drowned.)  The film is full of skewed camera angles that give the entire proceedings an off-balance feel and occasionally the action cuts away from the main characters to Mark playing a banjo or another park ranger (played by former Charlie Chaplin co-star Jackie Coogan) having a tense conversation with a policeman who calls to ask about the missing middle-aged couple.  The survivor doesn’t really go after the main couples until the film’s final 15 minutes and the pace suddenly quickens as if to mirror the relentless violence of the film’s killer.  The strange pacing and the weird details gives The Prey a dream-like feel and the ending, in which the survivor reveals that he has interests outside of killing, is fascinating in just how unexpectedly bizarre it is.

The Prey was undoubtedly made to take advantage of the popularity of other wilderness slasher films but it’s just weird enough to establish an identity of its own.