It’s so hard to find good movies that you haven’t seen before. There are a couple of big ones that come out each year, a couple of underrated that you also check out as soon as they’re out and then you are left with a huge selection of maybes and nos. Hopefully, Rabbit-Reviews will help you with this problem. After taking a deep-dive into the world of horror, I came out with a couple of good ones and Let Us Prey is one of those movies. Set in a police station (did someone say Assault on Precinct 13), it checks the closed environment movies tag and features a strong cast led by an eternally charismatic Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones, Dog Soldiers) and mysterious Pollyanna McIntosh (The Walking Dead, Exam, The Woman), both of whom have a decent horror background.
This was a debut for director Brian O’Malley and he did a great job mending together different vibes from many horror sub-genres. This is not a very original movie but it still has a distinct and authentic atmosphere and if you’re looking for a good horror movie that you haven’t seen before it will do just fine. For me, the biggest problem was the pacing that was phenomenal at times but overall too variable. I mean that opening scene was fucking awesome and I remember thinking how this is going to be one hell of a movie.
The dialogue was a bit dry and generic, especially the humorous attempts, however, these are all forgivable offenses. There was also enough gore and violent deaths to consider this a decent horror, especially with a budget that obviously was not big. Finally, this is an Irish movie and I’m a sucker for any decent horror movie that’s not coming to us from the US and A. If you’re looking for something similar do check out The Hallow and Isolation.
One dark and misty night in a small town in Scotland police go out to investigate a strange hit-and-run accident. The man involved in the incident disappears after the car hit him pretty hard. For one of the police officers, young Rachel Heggie, transferred to this rather small police station from a big city, this will be the first day, or should I say night, on the job. And some night it will be…
The claustrophobic and religious atmosphere was the driving force behind Let Us Prey. It will be a nice topic for discussion if you’re looking to dig deeper into the concept of good and evil, checks and balances and how are we perceiving the world. Is it under the influence of religion or the religion was a consequence of an already set concept that we just tried to explain through it? Something to make the darkness a little bit less scary and our going off this world a little bit less traumatic. I know this was unintentional, but this movie prompted me to think about it, especially during those dragged out scenes.
Speaking of scenes, I think there was a tremendous potential behind the story but the storytelling was a bit off, with main pieces of information missing during the middle part of it. If this was done in a better way, it would have given meaning and raised the stakes for those scenes, making the whole experience much more engaging. This is perhaps a consequence of an excellent character development that was the main focus of this movie. From the wife-beater to a kid that still has a chance to turn things around, each character was believable and realistic, adding more authenticity to the main story. The cinematography was also great, with a dark and brooding vibe all over it, making you feel like the walls are closing in on you. Bordering on artistic, Let Us Prey is a stylish horror, maybe too casual and entertaining to be called a classic but it still makes for damn fine viewing.
Director: Brian O’Malley
Writers: Fiona Watson, David Cairns, Brian O’Malley
Cast: Liam Cunningham, Pollyanna McIntosh, Bryan Larkin, Hanna Stanbridge, Douglas Russell, Niall Greig Fulton, Jonathan Watson
Fun Facts: When Caesar said he’s redecorating his cage (by carving his name into the floor with his fingernail), Beswick mocks him by saying he should try to learn how to spell it first. The camera shot shows Caesar had completed 3 letters so far: CEA.
Rating:
IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3148348/
