Prey

Spanish writer-director José Luis Montesinos offers a variant on Stephen King’s Cujo in this thriller about Elena (Paula del Rio), a young paraplegic woman trapped in a house with Athos, a Belgian Shepherd trained to assist her move about the place by opening doors with cords that have been hung from the knobs (thus the film’s original title, Cordes). Unfortunately, early on Athos is infected with rabies from the bite of a bat.  Elena is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a car crash that killed her sister Vera, but as is revealed early on, she is wracked with guilt since she was driving at the time, and tried to kill herself in her grief.  Her attempt at suicide was foiled by her father Miguel (Miguel Angel Jenner), from whom she had been long estranged but who is now trying to reconnect with her by, among other things, bringing her back to the family estate.  Unfortunately Miguel is killed by the raging Athos, leaving Elena isolated and unable to phone for help.  The remainder of Prey involves her efforts to escape not only the dog’s attacks but also those of her pet ferret, which has been bitten—and infected—by Athos in one of his assaults. There is also a brief intervention by Salva (Jordi Aguilar), the caretaker, who meets the same gruesome fate as Miguel, and in time Elena is confronted by the ghost of Vera (also played by del Rio), who essentially offers her sister tough love, encouraging her to abandon self-pity, come to terms with the past and use the reservoirs of strength she still possesses to survive.   Montesinos, who co-wrote the film with Yako Blesa, manages to fashion some genuinely tense sequences, and del Rio effectively portrays the transformation of Elena from a sour, angry young woman to a person determined to endure; her very different embodiment of Vera is also impressive, as is the turn the director and handlers have extracted from Espiona el Perro, the dog that plays Athos.  Marc Zumbach’s moody camerawork, the interior design by the Dolors Company and Arnau Bataller’s score add to the atmosphere.  But even more than with Lewis Teague’s filmization of Cujo [see VL 01/08], repetitiveness sets in and the film comes to feel contrived and overlong. Optional.