Horror Review: Let Us Prey

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Let Us Prey is an interesting film to review. On the surface it seems like a very generic horror film but, as it is with events in the film itself, looks can be deceiving.

Let Us Prey is set in a small, out of the way, Scottish town. Its police force consists of four officers; one of those officers, Rachel (Pollyanna McIntosh), is literally heading in for her first shift with the department when she witness a car hit a pedestrian. The driver, Caesar (Brian Vernal), stops and she arrests him, but the victim is nowhere to be found.

After getting back to the station ,she meets her commanding officer, Sgt. McReady (Douglas Russel), who seems intent on keeping the status quo and isn’t very warm to having Rachel in his department. Her fellow officers, Jack (Brian Larkin) and Jennifer (Hanna Stanbridge), are having an affair and seem to be pretty clearly corrupt.

Besides Caesar the police are also holding Ralph (Jonathan Watson), who is being held for domestic abuse, and not for the first time. Things get complicated when the man Caesar hit (Liam Cunningham) shows up at the station, battered, but apparently alright. After having Dr. Hume (Niall Gregg Fulton) examine the man, the Sargent decides to put the man in cell six, in part due to his refusal to identify himself, thus the character is referred to as simply Six.

After this, odd things start happening around the station. It becomes increasingly clear that Six is manipulating events and that each person in that station is not there by chance. It is up to Rachel, who has vague memories of meeting Six as a child, to figure out what is going on.

As I said at the top, Let Us Prey starts out as a very standard horror movie, with the introduction of the victims and then the slow thinning of the cast. What makes it stand out is that, as the plot unfolds, it starts playing with our expectations. Writers David Caims and Fiona Watson know who their audience is, and what they have come to expect, and use that knowledge to take the story to places that play with those expectations.

Director Brian O’Malley keeps the pace slow, but never dragging. When he does pick up the pace at the ending, he remembers that this is a horror film and not an action movie. The mood is also aided by the lighting, often coming off as if the whole movie is lit by the halogens in the station.

For the actors, this is clearly Cunningham’s film. Being the most recognizable of the cast (from his role as Davos Seaworth, the onion knight on Game of Thrones) Cunningham carries the film as the enigmatic Six. As the story moves on it becomes clear to the audience who Six is supposed to be, but the movie never comes out and confirms anything.

McIntosh manages to hold her own with Cunningham, as the film’s protagonist. Rachel’s history, showing she was kidnapped by a child murderer when she was a young girl, leads to a character who is determined to help others, but dealing with her own darkness from the event. All this leads to the final scene of the movie;  without giving away spoilers, it is unexpected, but McIntosh’s performance makes it stand out as a triumphant moment, where it could have easily fallen flat.

The rest of the cast is fine, but no one really stands out. They just play as figures in the game between Six and Rachel.

I give Let Us Prey a grade of B. Horror fans should enjoy the mood and how it plays with genre tropes, non-fans should still like it, but may be thrown by twists.

If you want to check it out, Let Us Prey is currently available on Netflix.

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