Toto DVD Review: ‘Prey’

Don’t look now, but the French are getting in on the environmental horror game.

In “Prey,” a Gallic clan finds itself knee-deep in disaster when a chemical agent runs amok.

It’s the second recent horror import to turn boars into unstoppable killing machines. The woeful “Chaw,” also new to home video, similarly relied on an overgrown boar to spill some blood.

“Prey” is superior to that Korean horror-comedy in every way, but the film merely strings together a skein of been there, killed that horror tropes en route to its “shocking” finale.

“Prey” opens in creepy fashion as we see a gaggle of dead deer jammed into an electric fence. They look as if they had dashed blindly forward in a fit of panic. The deep bite marks on their bodies show they had every reason to be afraid.

The owners of the property, an affluent French family who made their fortunes peddling fertilizer products, assemble a hunting party to kill the creature behind the assault. The makeshift crew includes the landowner’s future son-in-law, Nathan, an intellectual who looks like a Code Pink member holding a rifle. Nathan has a secret he can’t keep to himself, but the bigger mystery concerns the contents of a file that the family wants to keep sealed..

The interfamily squabbling gets shoved aside when a wild boar starts stalking the party. A few spent rounds later and it’s clear these hunters underestimated their target.

“Prey” shrewdly keeps the beasts at arm’s length, a function most likely of the film’s micro budget. We don’t need to see every tooth of the monster’s grin, but the haphazard editing can’t establish the claustrophobic sense of fear enveloping the hunters.

“Prey’s” promising introduction fades as the bodies start piling up. An attack staged in a creaky old cabin ends up being the film’s signature set piece, but by then we’ve lost interest in the remaining hunters.

Director Antoine Blossier trots out too many familiar themes, from family members turning on one another to the follies of spiking Mother Nature, to render “Prey” as anything except a competent genre exercise. The entire film wraps in well under 90 minutes, and you’ll be hard-pressed to remember much of it a few hours later.

Had the film embraced the story’s goofy underbelly it might have made more sense. Whimsy often serves as a substitute for original storytelling.

“Prey” remains a cut above the kind of horror films which mysteriously appear on video store shelves and Netflix menus. But for seasoned horror junkies the film offers too few surprises to merit their consideration.

(Photo: François Levantal co-stars as a business man whose product may have infected the local animal population in “Prey.”)