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Praey
SCREENER/APPROX. 102 MINS/2005/USA UNRATED
SCREENER/APPROX. 102 MINS/2005/USA UNRATED
Tiffany Sinclair’s movie PRAEY begins with Sara (director Tiffany Sinclair, who also stars), a recovered heroin addict, at a happy point in her life. She’
s got a husband who loves her, and a daughter, Rebecca, who she wants to be a positive role model for. But Rebecca is abducted, and Sara’s
husband dies accidentally while trying to save her.
Two years later, we see Sara in a police interrogation room, being asked about her involvement with some very shady people. It turns out that
Sara has reverted to her old ways since losing her family, she’s back to prostitution and taking heroin. One of her tricks, Baker (a mostly-annoying
Prawin Adhikari) has other plans for her and kidnaps her. When she’s in his trunk and trying to signal to another driver that she needs help, the
good Samaritan is killed. And Baker proceeds to bring Sara to her destination – the isolated cabin of Charles Price (Brian Sheridan).
It is here that the movie uses one of the most recycled plots in the history of movies, a plot which began with THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME back
in (1932), and which has been used in everything from an episode of Gilligan’s Island! To more recent fare like the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie
HARD TARGET (1993) and the Ice-T flick SURVIVING THE GAME (1994). Because you see, Charles is a man who hunts humans, in this case
prostitutes, and he gives Sara a head start into the woods before hunting her down.
What results is a game of cat and mouse with some ghosts of Charles’s former victims thrown in for good measure. We even learn what happened
to Sara’s lost daughter.
PRAEY is not a great movie by any stretch. It’s shot-on-video and looks shoddy (when I first started watching it, it looked like the beginning of a
porno film or a bad soap opera, but I slowly got used to it). The acting, for the most part, is pretty bad (Adhikari and the two actors playing the
cops who are interrogating Sara are especially awkward). Even Sinclair and Sheridan, easily the two best actors in this movie, have their weak
moments. And the plot is full of cliches and holes.
As an actress, Tiffany Sinclair’s previous credits include such Seduction Cinema flicks as SPIDERBABE and LORD OF THE G-STRINGS, but this is
her first directorial effort. It’s certainly more ambitious than the kinds of films she’s been acting in, and I couldn’t help but find myself wondering
what Sinclair would do with a real budget. She’s a multiple threat here – having done everything from writing and directing and producing the film,
to creating its “special make-up effects.” And the thing is – she’s got screen presence, and carries this film pretty easily. Unfortunately, there’s not
much to carry here, and there’s not a lot that’s particularly polished about PRAEY. But you’ve got to appreciate Ms. Sinclair’s ambitions and
potential.
The lack of nudity (despite the fact that Sinclair plays a prostitute) and any real gore doesn’t help. The film seems to play it much too safe in a lot
ways, where a more gritty sensibility would have added some genuine tension to the proceedings.
I didn’t think PRAEY was a good movie, but it had enough glimpses of potential in it to whet my appetite. I’m really curious to see what Tiffany
Sinclair does next.
s got a husband who loves her, and a daughter, Rebecca, who she wants to be a positive role model for. But Rebecca is abducted, and Sara’s
husband dies accidentally while trying to save her.
Two years later, we see Sara in a police interrogation room, being asked about her involvement with some very shady people. It turns out that
Sara has reverted to her old ways since losing her family, she’s back to prostitution and taking heroin. One of her tricks, Baker (a mostly-annoying
Prawin Adhikari) has other plans for her and kidnaps her. When she’s in his trunk and trying to signal to another driver that she needs help, the
good Samaritan is killed. And Baker proceeds to bring Sara to her destination – the isolated cabin of Charles Price (Brian Sheridan).
It is here that the movie uses one of the most recycled plots in the history of movies, a plot which began with THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME back
in (1932), and which has been used in everything from an episode of Gilligan’s Island! To more recent fare like the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie
HARD TARGET (1993) and the Ice-T flick SURVIVING THE GAME (1994). Because you see, Charles is a man who hunts humans, in this case
prostitutes, and he gives Sara a head start into the woods before hunting her down.
What results is a game of cat and mouse with some ghosts of Charles’s former victims thrown in for good measure. We even learn what happened
to Sara’s lost daughter.
PRAEY is not a great movie by any stretch. It’s shot-on-video and looks shoddy (when I first started watching it, it looked like the beginning of a
porno film or a bad soap opera, but I slowly got used to it). The acting, for the most part, is pretty bad (Adhikari and the two actors playing the
cops who are interrogating Sara are especially awkward). Even Sinclair and Sheridan, easily the two best actors in this movie, have their weak
moments. And the plot is full of cliches and holes.
As an actress, Tiffany Sinclair’s previous credits include such Seduction Cinema flicks as SPIDERBABE and LORD OF THE G-STRINGS, but this is
her first directorial effort. It’s certainly more ambitious than the kinds of films she’s been acting in, and I couldn’t help but find myself wondering
what Sinclair would do with a real budget. She’s a multiple threat here – having done everything from writing and directing and producing the film,
to creating its “special make-up effects.” And the thing is – she’s got screen presence, and carries this film pretty easily. Unfortunately, there’s not
much to carry here, and there’s not a lot that’s particularly polished about PRAEY. But you’ve got to appreciate Ms. Sinclair’s ambitions and
potential.
The lack of nudity (despite the fact that Sinclair plays a prostitute) and any real gore doesn’t help. The film seems to play it much too safe in a lot
ways, where a more gritty sensibility would have added some genuine tension to the proceedings.
I didn’t think PRAEY was a good movie, but it had enough glimpses of potential in it to whet my appetite. I’m really curious to see what Tiffany
Sinclair does next.
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