Prey is a 2007 natural horror/thriller film, starring Peter Weller, Bridget Moynahan, and Jamie Bartlett. It tells the story of a woman and her stepchildren efforts to survive the stalking of a man-eating pride of lions after they are left stranded on the African savannah. It is inspired by and very loosely based on the story of the Tsavo man-eaters during the colonial era.
Plot[]
Tom Newman, accompanied by his new wife, Amy, and his two children, Jessica, and her younger brother, David, arrive in Africa, where he has been contracted to supervise the building of a new dam in the region. David is taking very well to his new stepmother, but Jessica resents her heavily. The day after they arrived, Amy, Jessica, and David wake up early and head out with Brian, a local ranger, on a game drive. When David needs to use the restroom, Brian pulls over, grabs his rifle, and they get out. However, a lioness appears, much to Amy and Jessica's horror, with a lion soon following. When they're attacked, David runs for the car and makes it, but Brian does not, and sacrifices himself to keep the others alive after dropping his rifle. Afterwards, Amy and her stepchildren find themselves stalked by a pride, which consists of two females and a male. When Tom returns from his day at work, he is informed by the rangers about his family and, much to his outrage, finds that they won't be doing anything much until morning. He is put in touch with local professional big-game hunter and guide Crawford, who refuses to help him, as he is a guide for big five hunts, not search parties. The next morning, after David and Jessica locate the keys, Amy manages to get them, narrowly avoiding one of the lionesses. However, she drives the wrong way and ends up crashing the SUV, which then won't crank. Meanwhile, when he can't accompany the rangers, Tom gets a ride to Crawford's house and, after an initial refusal, manages to hire his services at his own price, and they negin searching in his car, monitoring the rangers to check their root for mistakes. The ranger helicopter flies past the car without seeing them, even when Jessica gets out, followed by Amy, and tries to get their attention. One of the lionesses attacks them, but is shot through the head by a pair of native hunters, who then start skinning it, seemingly uninterested in Amy and the others. They manage to makes the hunters understand they need water, with jessica going with one of them to watering hole and using gourds to carry back some. When they hear a gunshot and return, the other hunter leaves to find his friend, while Jessica rejoins Amy and David. Meanwhile, Crawford finds evidence of a lion, which revealed it had moved off, before they set up camp.
Later that night, back at the car, Amy and Jessica discuss how she met Tom, reconciling, before the hunter gets back and is killed after they let him in by the lion when it smashes through the windshield. The next day, as things seem more hopeless than ever, Amy tells Jessica and David they will survive no matter what and they resolve to use whatever they have to their advantage. Working together, they make things slightly better in their favor, before the lion reappears. Crawford and Tom make their way close them, with Crawford saying the trail had gone cold. He and Tom argue about how to continue the search, before, after the lion had left, Amy got out of the car and began calling out to them, with Crawford hearing her and leading Tom to within view of them. Though Crawford senses something is wrong, Tom rushes down ahead of him, with the last lioness appearing and confronting him. When it charges and leaps at him, Crawford shoots its through the heart and kills it, but is himself killed by the lion when he tries to follow Tom up to the car. After being unable to get in, he crawls under it and Amy breaks open the gas tank, telling him, Jessica, and David to make for a nearby tree when she gives the word. Stuffing some cloth into the tank, she draws the lion's attention, gives the word and, when the beasts enters, lights the cloth, causing it to explode the gas and kill the lion. Tom rushes back, believing her dead at first, but Amy appears beside the fire unhurt, and they all head for Crawford's car to return to lodge.