All director/co-writer Edwin Brown and co-writer Summer Brown had was about 10 minutes' worth of story and a trunkload of stock footage nature video -- but, by God, they were going to make a movie out of it. The result is The Prey, one of the worst horror films to ever see the light of day. I have to believe these guys actually attended film school at some point -- they couldn't possibly have broken every rule in the book of good filmmaking without having learned what all of those rules were to begin with. This isn't just a bad film -- it's bona fide torture. If we forced even a single terrorist in Guantanamo to watch this film, you would have folks protesting such cruel and unusual punishment within hours. We're lucky this piece of cinematic sewage didn't bring the slasher film industry crashing down around it.

Six young couples go camping in the woods, only to have their dreams of fun and fornication cut short by some unknown man or monster. That's pretty much the whole story; aside from the lousy ending, this is all follow-the-numbers stuff you've seen time and time again. With more padding than the sum total of all flat-chested teenaged girls on prom night, the filmmakers manage to string the ordeal out for over an hour and 15 minutes. Every few minutes, a video slideshow of animals in the wild breaks out -- bears, centipedes, snakes, you name it. There's so much of it that I kept expecting to hear a voiceover from Marlon Perkins. Still, that doesn't extend the film nearly long enough on its own. What now, then? I know -- let's cut to a POV shot from the killer's perspective every few seconds, and throw in plenty of shots of his shoes as he walks. Still not enough? OK, campers have to relieve themselves, don't they? Whenever an actor needs to do his business, let's include that in the story. We'll call it realism; it'll be great. What? We need how many more minutes? OK, let's show a couple of minutes of the forest ranger tuning a banjo. Hey, it's either that or more stock footage of animals. And how about we give that same park ranger one of the dumbest stories any of us can think of and have him tell that story to -- how about you just surprise me, OK?

Now we get to the parts of this film that had me wanting to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon. Cue the night-time campfire scene. All six characters are talking a mile a minute, but you can't hear most of it -- and that's actually by design. Unfortunately, the part we are allowed to hear involves the telling of the world's worst adaptation of "The Monkey's Paw" story. I could also make out a little bit of another character's mindless chatter, though -- and lo and behold if I didn't hear it twice. Yes, folks, they actually recycled part of the same scene in an effort to further pad the film. I should have stopped watching at that point.

Don't count on any blood and gore to make the film any more palatable, either -- there ain't none. That's doubly unfortunate because you will desperately want to see every one of these annoying characters killed off as soon as possible. One of the actors is named Steve Bond, but I would swear he has a close familial link to the awful Timothy Van Patten. You have to feel sorry for Jackie Coogan, though; I admit his acting is horrible, but it's sad to see "Uncle Fester" go out like this -- I'm pretty sure The Prey was his last film. At least he has some company in his misery, as he's joined by fellow The Addams Family alum Carel Struycken -- I'll let you guess which part "Lurch" played.

Bottom line: avoid The Prey like the plague -- unless you're a bad horror movie masochist like me.