Review of Let Us Prey (2014) by Robert H — 22 Jan 2016

One of the most insane and original horror movies I've seen in some time, Let Us Prey is f***ing ridiculous. Following the rather simple premise of a mysterious man showing up in a police station and weird stuff starting to happen, this movie goes in some pretty crazy directions. The final act of this movie just goes bats*** insane, and will make it very divisive to a lot of people. I feel like this is a love it or hate it type of movie. Personally, I mostly loved it. There are flaws I cannot deny in this movie. Things sometimes seem to line up too conveniently, and there are some dramatic shifts in character at times where people seem to just lose their mind for no clear reason. The movie also shifts in tone from depressingly dramatic to overly silly sometimes, and while I'm usually okay with tonal shifts in film because that's just the way life is, here it doesn't really seem to mesh so well. There's also a romance thrown in at the last 20 seconds which I really didn't buy and knocked the experience down for me.

I have sort of a sliding scale in my mind while I'm watching a movie of how many stars I'll give it, and this movie jumped around that scale a lot. In the end though, looking back at it, I liked it. At it's best moments it's basically a gory version of a Twilight Zone episode, and I really enjoyed that element to it. It could have been a great movie, but it falls short. Still, it's creepy tone, awesome performance from Liam Cunningham, and moments of insanity made it a really fun time for me overall.