Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Let Us Prey Blu-ray Movie Review

Who Is Number Six?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 20, 2015

The Irish actor Liam Cunningham has a face that both invites scrutiny and defies it. It's an adaptable face, suitable for tough guys, gangsters, stoic heroes, ruthless villains and even ordinary fellows who turn out to be more than they seem. Currently best known as former smuggler Davos Seaworth on Game of Thrones, Cunningham has enjoyed a long and varied career in film and TV, playing everything from a priest in Steve McQueen's Hunger to Harry Brown's pub landlord, who knows everyone and sees all in a crime-ridden London neighborhood.

In Let Us Prey, a joint Scottish-Irish production and the debut feature from director Brian O'Malley, Cunningham's ambiguous features are ideally suited to the role of a character known only as Six, after the number of the jail cell in which he is placed. With no identification and nothing to say (at least at first), Six is the apparent mystery at the heart of the film. By the film's conclusion, though, much larger questions have been raised—assuming, of course, that one is inclined to contemplate the moral underpinnings of the story's events. One can simply enjoy the gleefully bloody mayhem that seems to follow in Six's wake wherever he goes.

The script for Let Us Prey is by David Cairns and Fiona Watson, who previously worked together on a BBC series called Twisted Tales, and the story has the kind of hermetic, self-contained quality of an episode from a TV show like Tales from the Crypt. The initial inspiration for this particular tale was John Carpenter's classic Assault on Precinct 13, from which the writers borrowed the idea of an isolated police station under attack. But Carpenter's film was a retooled Western, in which the police station became a fort assaulted by criminals. In Let Us Prey, the attack comes from within.

The stylish opening credits of Let Us Prey establish that Cunningham's Six is a supernatural being, as his spectral figure strides over eerie images of waves, rocky coasts and black crows bringing portents of doom. Eventually Six arrives at the isolated Scottish village of Inveree, where a rookie police officer, PC Rachel Heggie (Pollyanna McIntosh), is working the night shift of her first day on the force. Rachel observes (or thinks she does) Six being run down by a car driven by a local troublemaker named Francis "Caesar" Sargison (Brian Vernel), but when she looks in front of Caesar's vehicle, there is no one there, just blood on the headlights. Dragging Caesar into the station, Rachel is greeted with mockery by the commanding officer, Sgt. MacReady (Douglas Russell), but he broadcasts her description of the missing victim. The alert interrupts the on-duty recreational activities of PCs Jack Warnock and Jennifer Mundie (Bryan Larkin and Hanna Sturbridge), who prefer sex in their patrol car to police work, but they eventually bring in the bleeding and non-responsive Six. A local doctor, Duncan Hume (Niall Greig Fulton), is called. When he can find no serious injury, Six is placed in the cell that gives him his name. Another cell is occupied by Ralph Beswick (Jonathan Watson), a repeat "guest" for spousal abuse.

Having established all the players, director O'Malley lets all hell break loose inside police headquarters while a fierce storm rages outside. This apparently ordinary town turns out to be one of those strange places that exist "off the map" (or, as Rod Serling might put it, "in the Twilight Zone"). Everyone in the Inveree police station has a troubled past (and that's putting it mildly). Some of them are monsters hiding in plain sight: psychopaths, serial killers, vigilantes. The presence of Six seems to bring their concealed transgressions rushing to the surface. "He knows!" says one person, who, upon seeing Six, tries to stab him with a scissors. For his own part, Six says little, and what he does say is cryptic. As the night wears on, however, he begins to speak more freely, especially to Rachel. His sole possession, a book filled with names and mysterious symbols, seems to mean nothing at first, but it turns out to be the key to his purpose for being there.

Rachel is probably the least guilty of the group, but she lives under the shadow of a horrendous crime of which she was the victim as a child. The experience is probably what motivated her to enter law enforcement. Now, however, she is confronted with a police force that is brutal and corrupt and seems to care little about justice and even less about protecting the innocent. Six seems to understand her frustration. Indeed, he's the only one who does.

O'Malley and the writers may be messing with metaphysics, but they don't shortchange the horror fans. Numerous victims are killed in Let Us Prey, and most of them deserve the Grand Guignol bloodfests that accompany their exit. Some of the scenes have the over-the-top excess that's intended to provoke laughter, in the style of Evil Dead II. Still, O'Malley keeps coming back to Liam Cunningham's face as the inscrutable Six, which is no laughing matter even before it's revealed who he is and why he's come.

Let Us Prey Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

No information was available about the shooting format, but Let Us Prey appears to have been originated digitally. The credited cinematographer is Piers McGrail (The Canal ). MPI Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced from digital files. Deep blacks are the critical element in the film's visual scheme, beginning with the crows of the opening credits and continuing through the many scenes in the nighttime streets of the town. (The entire film plays out in the course of one evening.) Even the interiors are frequently lit so that figures are isolated by dark shadows. This is easily arranged in the dim basement where the jail cells are located, and it even occurs in the better illuminated main floor. In one startling moment, the overhead lights switch off suddenly as a character is transported to another place and time (whether in reality or in his own mind is unclear), and the effect is achieved entirely with light and shadow.

Whatever isn't shrouded in blackness is detailed and reasonably sharp. The "making of" featurette reveals that the production deliberately chose vintage anamorphic lenses in an effort to evoke the look of the classic horror films from the Eighties. The palette begins on the cooler side and gradually warms as midnight approaches (which is the moment that Six has been waiting for), when the most prominent colors are bright reds and yellows.

MPI has encoded Let Us Prey with an average bitrate of 21.98 Mbps, which is adequate for digitally originated material. Except for a few stray instances of banding at scene changes, no artifacts were in evidence.

Let Us Prey Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Let Us Prey's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, packs a wallop for the film's impressive finale, which I can't describe without spoilers, but suffice it to say that's there destruction all around. An early indication of the track's dynamic range comes during the opening credits with the sound of wind, waves and crows flapping their wings, as "Six" makes his way to Inveree. Cars squealing to a halt, jail cell doors clanging shut, shotgun blasts and horrible squishing sounds accompanying impacts on various body parts have been amped up for maximum effect. The sound of the inclement weather is a constant presence.

The dialogue is clearly rendered, but the Scottish accents are so thick, especially Douglas Russell's as Sgt. MacReady, that the dialogue can sometimes be hard to follow. Use the English subtitles as needed. The effective score is by Steve Lynch, whose previous work has been primarily on short films.

As usual with MPI releases, an alternate PCM 2.0 track is included.

Let Us Prey Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (1080p; 1.78:1; 10:52): Director O'Malley, several of the producers and cast members, including Cunningham, McIntosh and McCreadie, discuss the story and their approach to making the film. (Spoiler warning: Major plot points are revealed.)



• Trailer (1080p; 2.35:1; 2:25)



• Additional Trailers: At startup the disc plays trailers for VANish, Starry Eyes, Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf and From the Dark, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Let Us Prey Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Let Us Prey doesn't break new ground in either horror or supernatural thrillers, but it's well-conceived and skillfully executed in a genre that's seen more than it's share of slapdash work. As the filmmakers stress in the "making of" featurette, the characters, though extreme, are individuals with distinct personalities, and the casting is strong all around. No one is there just as "cannon fodder". MPI's disc, though light on extras, is a capable presentation. Highly recommended.