The Prey: Legend of Karnoctus is available now in the US on all major Cable VOD platforms, including Comcast, Dish, Charter, DirecTV, Cox, and Verizon Fios. On July 7, the film comes to digital platforms, including iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu, and Google Play.
Synopsis
In the Afghanistan desert, a group of mercenaries out for treasure complete their greatest heist. Seeking refuge from the hunting Taliban in a nearby cave, they are soon joined by retreating US soldiers, and both groups are trapped within by a rocket explosion at the cave’s entrance. The newly joined parties need to work together to find an escape through the labyrinth but soon realize they’re being tracked by a deadly beast that local legend calls Karnoctus; and they have become… the prey.
Review
If you are looking for a quintessentially action film then you can on most occasions rely on the name of Danny Trejo to guide you in the right direction. This film is a mix of frontline war action and survival horror which does work to some degree but it does make the film feel a little disjointed. At the start of the film it feels like another generic war heist film in am enjoyable way then comes the cave twist and it then seems to turn into more of a survival horror film, the two as a separate film would probably work but having the both in the same film is a bit of a strange concept to get your head around.
The overall story is pretty straight forward, a group of rogue spec ops hide the Taliban gold they’ve stolen in a cave in the hope of returning to claim the fortune when the smoke clears, warnings of the Karnoctus legend fall on deaf ears and they plough on regardless. Becoming trapped in the cave with other retreating American soldiers they reluctantly need to work together to find their way out, if there indeed is a way.
Although the film and story are pretty standard and nothing really new it was still a decent watch, the action is definitely there and there are a few jump scares thrown in for good measure, I feel the co directors Eric Hensman and Matthew Hensmanhave did a solid job of creating this action film I wouldn’t say it will be winning any Oscars but it does the job and worth a watch, I personally would’ve liked to have seen more of Danny Trejo I personally thought he would’ve made a great leading character in this although the main character Tagger (Mick Chinlund) was more than capable to carry the film.
Verdict
The Prey ticks all the action-movie boxes. The ending feels rushed, leaving the viewer with a cliffhanger which sets up more potential storytelling from this work. Whilst it may never reach “cult classic” status, The Prey is still a decent beer-and-pizza movie.
⭐⭐⭐️
