One of the main reasons our blog/website exists is David A Prior’s Deadly Prey. That’s one of those rare movies that pushed us from being aficionados to professionally reviewing movies. So it’s only natural that we would celebrate the day we got long gestating sequel (shot almost 30 years after the part 1) in our mail.And now among the first (our fantastic colleagues from Action Elite were little faster) you can read everything about the Deadliest Prey.

Movie starts with Colonel Hogan, ruthless ex- military officer walking up in sweat. He dreamt of Mike Danton, again. Obviously he’s been doing that for the better part of 25 years. Guard informs him he’s got to get his shit together ’cause he’s getting out in 30 minutes. He is then picked up by a hot redhead, ovbiasly a fan.

In the meantime little blond boy wakes up his father, ’cause it’s time to throw the thrash… then we find out that he’s father is none other than unstoppable Mike Danton! Denton doesn’t seem too thrilled by his chore but he asks for coffee and does it anyway. Unfortunately it turns out that the years haven’t made him invulnerable to his one lone weakness- taking out the thrash sneak attack! And before you know it Denton is stunned and packed like a sack of potatoes. Movie cuts to the unlikely trio of hackers gets bored with their video game life and surfing the net find the mysterious stream of man hunting. And we can all guess who’s the man being hunted can’t we? Denton stands face to face with his old nemesis- and game is all set to go. Denton takes a minute to promise swift death to all but Hogan (who he promise a slow, painful one) and as Hogan screams “now you run, son of a bitch” the hunt is finally on!

Hogan is also seemingly  in cahoots with shady internet businessmen- so he earns money from the manhunt stream and also hunts Denton (theoretically) killing two birds with one stone. Denton starts disposing the mercenaries one at the time… and instructed by his previous experience decides to steal a pair of pants, and some nice boots too!

“I’m not doing this shit barefoot again”

And when Denton get’s into a groove you better watch out. Armed mostly with a just a pocket size knife he starts casing mayhem on (surprisingly young and agile) group of would be mercenaries. Hogan doesn’t seem to bothered with this (I guess he plans on having a stream on for some hours) and also suddenly realizes he hasn’t gotten laid in almost 30 years. So he grabs his second in command redhead military chick (played by Tara Kleinpeter) and goes inspecting the troops (haven’t heard that one before).

“I don’t want to be disturbed for the next 15 minutes or so”

Surprisingly, Ted Prior looks good as an older, more chiseled Denton. Gone is the look of surf- boy bodybuilder replaced with a more “no bullshit” Clint Eastwood attitude. He dismantles everything they send after him leaving just one survivor with a message to Hogan. Hogan receives the message right away (it seems he didn’t last the full 15 minutes) but doesn’t seem too thrilled. In fact he rewards his soldier by shooting him point blank. And then things get really interesting- Fritz Matthews  is back as Thorton’s twin brother  ( by pure happstinance because someone from his church pointed towards something David wrote about him on his blog and decided to hit him up after 25 years ) and he’s not happy about Denton cutting his brothers arm and then beating him ’till death with it.

In the meantime Danton is making friends, it turns out his old war buddy Kaplan is one of the mercenaries (sound familiar?). After a little bit of fist fighting Kaplan decides that he can’t go on with it- and offers to help Danton out. Denton seemingly disappears from Hogan’s eyes aka cameras but that just pisses him off and he decides to lead a hunting party himself (backed by Thorton ofc). He also shoots a couple of internet entrepreneurs that helped him set everything up- just because. After an introverted moment or a two in which he thinks about his family Denton returns to doing what he does best- wrecking everything on his sight. But he didn’t count on Lt. Thorton (part 2) and soon it finds himself captured and gagged.

Hogan interrogates him for a bit- and describes all the torturing he means to deliver and I must say David Campbell has grown more manic with time. Redhead Sophia then takes her turn seemingly jealous of the all attention Hogan is giving him. As soon as she’s gone, Kaplan shows up and frees Danton and they make daring escape… BY BLOWING SHIT UP!

Unfortunately Kaplan dies and it seems that Denton will meet the same fate… when the deadly trio of ridiculous hackers picks him up (’cause they managed to tracked down the source of the feed). Now, Danton can finally reunite with his family and everything will be OK. Unfortunately family is not home! Being a strategical genius Lt. Hogan send his mercenaries to kidnap his wife just in case and Denton is met with deadly Sophie finally ready to deliver on her treats. Denton does what he generally does with women he doesn’t like- he back fists her and shoots her all kinds of dead.

Then it’s time to suit up and go into one last battle. He armors himself for the special occasion .And even his daisy dukes make a special appearance.

He starts off with some old school traps and continues with stealth slicing and dicing. After the first trap- bomb goes off he ditches the stealth mode and adopts more straight forward Rambo approach.The last bargaining chip Hogan’s got is Danton’s wife. Unfortunately for him that doesn’t last for long. Hogan finally looses it and orders Thorton to off the woman. So it seems they’ll be two for two in Denton’s wife killing business. But not- someone shot Thorton in the shoulder and that’s a wild card- Denton Jr. who sneaked out on hacker bunch and decided to help out his dad.

Chip of the old block

Then the original Denton jumps in and let’s just say some are end up flying in the process. Just before a final showdown between Denton and Hogan the trio of hackers shows up… and they die. Denton proves harder to kill- one of his ultimate traps finally pays of a Hogan ends up disemboweled. The End.

Verdict: Even though this movie is even more low budget affair than the original Priors actually managed to improve on the original in some ways. The copied   the structure of the original completely – tweaked it just enough so it flows more natural. Also the fact is Ted Prior is no longer muscle bound hot-head but actually a capable actor and that changes things up. Now don’t get me wrong- Prior can be as corny as it gets when he needs to be but now he’s got that Eastwood ironic detachment that makes things even more hilarious. Also- David Campbell is hitting an all time high, in this movie- this is one of my favorite madman ever caught on screen. But most of all  this movie has an incredible “blast from the past” vibe to it and it brings back all the B-movie all out action trashiness that seems incredibly fresh in today’s PG-13 ultra- budget centered industry. Anyway, the years haven’t hurt Priors at all. Now I just hope to see Prior Bros. fallow this up with a couple more trademark action romps that they’re known for (and a nice slasher in old school Sledgehammer/ Aerobicide style wouldn’t hurt too).

Trivia: David A Prior when asked about a possible Deadly Prey 3, gave free rains to his nephew to make a Deadly Prey: Next Generation as soon as he’s 18. I wouldn’t be surprised if that actually happens, the kid has the making of the action star.

Note #01 (Un)fortunately we don’t have any recent nude photos of Ted Prior.

Note #02 WM Crew would also like to thank PRIOR BROTHERS ENTERTAINMENT for providing us with DVD for review in such short notice. Class acts all the way.