Blu-Ray Review: Let Us Prey

By Less Lee Moore

Brian O’Malley’s feature debut Let Us Prey reveals its darkness slowly and deliciously at first, evoking a sense of dread and mystery that keeps you watching. It also provokes a lot of questions. Who is this mysterious stranger who looks a lot like Liam Cunningham? Why has Police Constable Rachel Heggie been reassigned? Why is everyone at the police station so angry?

At its core, Let Us Prey has a solid idea, one that I won’t ruin for you by revealing it. It’s more thought provoking the more you think about it. Unfortunately, there is an excessive amount of gore that nearly causes the film to choke on its own blood. Let Us Prey falters when it lets the backstories of the supporting cast overwhelm the central conceit of the film.

As Heggie, Pollyanna McIntosh is terrific, though. She’s got a rangy toughness that makes me think she’s be perfectly cast in a feminist Western or action film. By turns vulnerable and vicious, she definitely holds her own against Liam Cunningham’s baleful stares and threatening proclamations.

The story lines of Heggie’s fellow PCs and Sergeant MacReady are intriguing but seem like literal overkill and perhaps could have been better served in their own films. Yes, I grasp that a certain someone’s machinations likely led all of these damaged and dangerous people to this point of convergence, but after so much blood and brain splattered on the walls, it starts to feel heavy-handed. The effects are grotesquely believable, however, and we can thank newcomer Derek Johnston for that.

Another negative about Let Us Prey is the lack of levity. Even the jokes characters make at the expense of other characters feel cruel and frankly, not very funny. Everything is said with a sneer or a thinly veiled threat and after an hour of this, the claustrophobic atmosphere is overwhelming, and not in a good way.

Steve Lynch’s musical score is quite good and one of the better things in Let Us Prey, besides stellar acting from both Cunningham and McIntosh. The ending climax between their characters might strain credulity, feeling more like the setup to a franchise than a satisfying finale, but perhaps that’s just what O’Malley and writers David Cairns and Fiona Watson intended.

Although Let Us Prey may have worked better as a short film, or perhaps a TV series, it’s still worth a watch for an unflinching, if sometimes overly oppressive, look at the nature of evil.

Let Us Prey was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada and Raven Banner on May 19.