The Naked Prey

Actor-director Cornel Wilde's 1965 take on the survival drama of a human who is hunted through the wilds by a predatory hunter as sport—first seen in the 1932 classic The Most Dangerous Game—is arguably the definitive, most visceral, and primal example of the genre. Inspired by a real-life account on the American frontier but relocated to colonial South Africa, the simple story charts the flight of a bush guide (Wilde) who is captured by a disgruntled tribe during an ivory-hunting safari and sent off into the veldt, naked and unarmed, to be hunted down for sport. As a director, Wilde strips the ordeal to the essentials, not even bothering with names (Wilde's character is called simply "The Man" in the credits) and forgoing subtitles for the tribal African dialogue (the better to capture the horror of the unknown suffered by the captives). He sets the action against the searing austerity and matter-of-fact savagery of the African wilds, where the man’s flight is just another example of the animal survival instinct in a predatory world. The film is notorious for the tortures unleashed upon the captured hunters for spectacle (not explicit but brutal), but the blunt slaughter of elephants is as grotesque as any of the cruelties faced by the humans. Featuring a new HD transfer, extras include audio commentary by film scholar Stephen Prince, "John Colter’s Escape" (the 1912 record of the titular trapper’s flight from Blackfoot Indians that inspired this film, read aloud by Paul Giamatti), original soundtrack cues created by Wilde and ethnomusicologist Andrew Tracey, and a booklet with an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)