A man’s life is in danger when a mysterious stranger comes knocking at his door. This is our review of directing duo Ben Poppy and Kory Sean Williams’ Prey.
When it comes to the often-used fantasy of time travel it’s the idea of correcting or preventing a mistake that has been the popcorn fodder for countless movies; whether it’s protecting the future mother of a revolutionary soldier who can lead a rebellion against vicious killer robots, making sure your parents fall in love so that you and your siblings can be born, or to get help passing a history exam, the movies have given us some of our favourite stories simply by travelling through time.
Ben Poppy and Kory Sean Williams Prey is a 22-minute lo-fi time travel thriller that gives us a different angle on the time travel mythos with less emphasis on (as one of the characters says) happy endings. Whereas cinema over the years has conditioned us to believe that when travelling through time you should never bump into yourself, despite that being what everyone would do if given the chance, Prey throws all that out of the window straight away as our protagonist Prey (played by Jordan Turk) is disturbed by a knock on the door from a version of himself 10 years in the future. His older self (played by Phil Webster) has come to ask him to commit suicide, so in that sense, Prey does stick to the formula that meeting your future self can be very dangerous.
Filmed in elegant black and white, with its overlying sense of doom and underlying theme of death, Prey reminds you of another less obvious but definitive classic time travel movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ but this short is far more nihilistic and much less uplifting. Prey is no George Bailey and his future self is certainly no Clarence. The writing by co-director Ben Poppy takes the form of a duologue with two characters engaged in an angry, philosophical discussion about the meaning of life, death, and what it means if you were to stay alive.
Jordan Turk as Prey gives a powerful performance, questioning everything, while Phil Webster’s stranger is every inch his equal; they both manage to convey that they are the same person. Even though they are not completely identical, the use of black and white colouring helps to emphasise the similar features that they do have. The script is punctuated by swear words, their angry exchanges spikey and sharp which gives the film a modern-day feel and an immediacy that makes the audience question themselves. If you already know your future and that future happens to be rubbish is it actually worth staying around to see it?
Although set in the one bedsit, the shot choices and direction from Poppy and Williams keep things tense and dramatic while the black and white cinematography by Henry Meredith adds to the overall gloom of the film. Finally, when Ryan Bridgewater’s music kicks in it’s used in a way that shocks and alarms us, even imitating an actual alarm at certain points in the film.
Prey looks like a noir and occasionally plays out like one, and like all the best noirs, we are never sure what is real or who to believe. Prey is obviously sick but will he get the help he needs and has that visit from his alleged future self changed him for the better or for the worse?
Prey is a curious film that confuses and irritates in equal measure but is never dull. Don’t expect any easy answers or enlightenment from it, but you can certainly expect a fascinating 22-minutes. It’s certainly worth catching if you can.
