The Naked Prey
1966 Directed by Cornel Wilde
Synopsis
A group of men are on safari. One of the party refuses to give a gift to a tribe they encounter. The tribe is offended, seizes the party, and one-by-one, kills all but one of the safari members in various creative and horrifying ways. The last surviving member is given "The Lion's Chance" by the tribal leader to be hunted down by a party of tribal warriors.
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Ignoring the questionable depictions of race and how far fetched it is for much of its run time, The Naked Prey is a relentless and kinetic chase movie. The thing that really strikes you is the fact it is practically wordless. Barring a handful of lines near the start no English is uttered throughout the entire film, instead it relies on the relentless African drum beats and the heightened sounds of people desperate for breath or screaming in pain as a spear penetrates their abdomen.
After the white hunters offend the native tribe all bar one of the party are killed in surprisingly horrific ways. The one survivor is then sent out into the wild, naked and defenseless, as the…
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Watched the Criterion DVD to prepare for the podcast.
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Cornel Wilde's "The Naked Prey", or as I will know it as "101 Reasons Why I Will Never Go to Africa", is a stunning work of pure cinema. A man (Cornel Wilde) is relentlessly chased after his safari is decimated by a wild tribe. The camera captures the omnipresent savagery of the jungle but allows the moments of kindness, the few that exist, to land with terrific power.
An early sequence where the tribe subjects the safari members to various tortures is one of the most startling and unnerving sequences I've ever seen on film. Few films overwhelm you with the visual language of cinema to achieve such consistently thrilling and savage results. Wilde, also serving as the director of the picture, rivals the best from Hitchcock in suspense and doom. Filled with colors, charged drum beats, and landscapes both beautiful and terrifying, "The Naked Prey" is a film that forces itself under your skin.
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The reason movies are made.
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1966年的電影,但是電影善良不血腥,劇情流暢可愛,觀影完後可以帶著審思批判的心情也可以帶著愉悅滿足的快樂而不衝突,實在是一部好電影
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Ignoring the questionable depictions of race and how far fetched it is for much of its run time, The Naked Prey is a relentless and kinetic chase movie. The thing that really strikes you is the fact it is practically wordless. Barring a handful of lines near the start no English is uttered throughout the entire film, instead it relies on the relentless African drum beats and the heightened sounds of people desperate for breath or screaming in pain as a spear penetrates their abdomen.
After the white hunters offend the native tribe all bar one of the party are killed in surprisingly horrific ways. The one survivor is then sent out into the wild, naked and defenseless, as the…
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A very unique and compelling curiosity filmed entirely in South Africa—it’s almost silent with jungle drums and occasional dialogue in Swahili. A group of explorers out on safari are captured by some bloodthirsty natives. They kill off all but one (Cornell Wilde), who they then send out into the bush with no clothes or supplies and prepare to hunt him down, something like a globe-hopping twist on The Most Dangerous Game crossed with Mondo Cane. Of course, Wilde isn’t about to go down without a fight, and begins killing of his pursuers and scrounging for food and he makes his way to a British outpost. Extended nature photography of predators clearly means to make some sort of statement on the inherent violence in the world, but it’s nicely shot and edited into the narrative. There’s clearly some slightly racist attitudes implied by the action, but it’s still a fascinating film.