Horror Challenge #8: Prey (2010)

I don't know what's in the water over there in France, but French horror movies always seem to be fucked up in ways I never would have imagined.  This is another one of those movies Netflix recommended to me, and I watched it not knowing that it was going to be a French horror movie, but as soon as I realized it was (when everyone, you know, started speaking French and stuff) I knew I was in for a messed up treat. For awhile this didn't seem to be a horror movie, and I was worried I'd stumbled upon a thriller or something and I'd have to perform strenuous verbal acrobatics to classify it as a horror movie, but things soon turn around and land this movie clearly in the "horror" camp.

A young man and his wife (fiance?  Girlfriend?  We're not sure) are staying with her family in their estate on their land because the dsaughter works in her father's factory manufacturing some chemical product (fertilizer of some kind) and her fiance wants her to leave and get away, but her father won't allow it even though she's pregnant (he says they can always have other children...yep, he's a winner).  Meanwhile, there's something weird going on in the surrounding woods, some animal that is killing deer, and the weird uncle and the grandfather want to go on a hunt in the woods for the wild boar they're sure is doing all the killing, so the father joins them, and soon the young woman's fiance, angry that she won't leave with him, joins the hunt to in order to spite her.  Too bad he can't fire a gun to save his life, but we've seen movies like "The Hills Have eyes," so we know that soon even the pampered city boy will either learn to survive or die.

The movie is nasty gory, with some great gore effects, and even though some of the characters are despicable, I really liked the fiance, Nathan, and his love interest Claire.  I felt bad for her even though she's kind of a bitch, because she doesn't know what her father is really up to, and she wants to work in his lab to help keep the family fortune rolling in because she has a sense of family loyalty.  The creature effects are good too, and incredibly nasty, and I won't spoil it for you, but the ending is quietly chilling for a movie that was so hard-drivingly full of action and gore.  This was definitely worth a watch.