An strange man named Anders (an effectively awkward and freaky performance by Barry Stokes) seeks refuge at the remote rural country cottage of bitter, man-hating, domineering lesbian Josephine (a deliciously spiky and venomous portrayal by the lovely Sally Faulkner) and her sweet, timid lover Jessica (an appealing turn by the cute Glory Annen). Unbeknownst to the ladies, Anders is really a lethal and predatory cannibalistic alien who's on a surveillance mission to find a food source for his race. Director Norman J. Warren, working from a compact and compelling script by Max Cuff, relates the arrestingly peculiar story at a slow, yet steady pace and does an expert job of creating and maintaining a tense, edgy and uncomfortable atmosphere that ultimately culminates in a grisly and terrifying conclusion with an extremely chilling last line. Moreover, Warren delivers a pleasingly abundant amount of in-your-face hideous graphic gore, tasty female nudity, and sizzling soft-core sex to further spice things up. The central narrative offers a weird and pointed critique on prim'n'proper English manners that reaches its gloriously off-center apex with a supremely uneasy and unnerving costume party sequence. The three leads all do strong work with their sharply drawn characters, with Faulkner a stand-out as the spiteful and possessive Josephine. Better still, there's no obtrusive silly humor to detract from the stark severity of the refreshingly grim and brutal horror. Derek V. Browne's fairly slick cinematography astutely nails the pervasive isolation and vulnerability of the sylvan setting while Ivor Slaney's shivery score does the spine-tingling trick. Well worth a look.

An alien (Barry Stokes) meat eater lands on earth and takes human form as one of his victims. He is taken in as a house guest in an English country manor by a pair of lesbians. The two women are a bit odd. Jessica (Glory Annen) the not too shy owner of the estate inherited it from her parents. Jo (Sally Faulkner) worked there and stayed on as the alpha female in the relationship.

The alien is socially inept. Jessica is fond of him, "He's very attractive...for a man" to the dismay of Jo who suspects something is up. The film has slow scenes and takes time to build up to a climax that wasn't worth the wait. Low budget soft core sci-fi from the 70's. A drive-in movie flick.

Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (Glory Annen, Sally Faulkner, Barry Stokes) girl/girl sex, cat fight.

Whenever you watch a film made by British director Norman J. Warren you always know that, whatever might happen, it's probably going to be very nasty indeed. Watching his ultra low budget science fiction quickie PREY, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is an exception - and you'd be right, at least for the first seventy minutes or so. The movie is basically a three-hander with the added plot device that two of the females are lesbian lovers, giving Warren a chance to indulge in some gratuitous sex scenes - being a slice of '70s exploitation, this comes as no surprise.

Warren makes good use of his secluded woodland location to create an isolated location in which the story leisurely unfolds, variously killing off minor characters (even the pet parrot) before the true horror of the story comes to the fore. The film isn't without faults - it's probably Warren's most poorly-paced movie, with all the violence and graphic horror saved for the ending rather than dotted throughout like in TERROR and INSEMINOID. Some scenes do drag, like the dinner party featuring Stokes in drag (!),or the laughably dramatic pond-drowning sequence which seems to last an age. The scenery and foreboding atmosphere, plus the human dramas inside the household, do keep it watchable throughout however.

It's difficult to judge the performances of Glory Annen and Sally Faulkner, playing two matter-of-fact women going about their humdrum lives; they're not really required to act much until the finale. Faulkner, however, makes for a scarily convincing desperate woman with homicidal desires, whilst Annen takes an understated approach instead limited to only one screaming fit. Barry Stokes, on the other hand, is pretty good as the handsome but alien visitor, packing his performance with strange mannerisms, odd expressions and a stilted personality to perfectly reflect his alien persona. Ironically, it is when he reveals his true self that the effect is ruined through cheap makeup, with a plastic snout and spiky teeth, although those red reptile contact lenses are pretty creepy.

The film is best remembered for the incredibly gruesome finale, in which Faulkner finds that her lover has been disembowelled and cannibalised by the alien intruder - we're talking explicit gore here, blood splattering up the walls, entrail munching and everything. It's not surprising that this scene has been heavily cut in various UK releases over the years but whichever version you do see, you'll still get the impression - a grotesque slice of stomach-churning terror that gives Fulci's cannibalism in ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS a run for its money. An even weirder British addition to the sci-fi/horror genre came in the early '80s with Harry Bramley Davenport's unique and utterly bizarre epic XTRO, with which this has much in common.