Prey | 1977 | UK | Norman J. Warren

Another British shocker from cult director Norman J. Warren, this 1977 sci-fi flick is a soft retelling of D.H. Lawrence’s The Fox within a UK setting and added extraterrestrials. Prey concerns a lone alien called Kantor landing in rural England and assuming the form of a man called Anders. The stranger ends up staying with a lesbian couple, Josephine and Jessica, assessing their relationship and trying to navigate normal life. The smitten Jessica is enamoured with the man, due to her youthful inquisitiveness and the rigid control of the masculine Josephine, who harbours a hatred of men and any outside influence on their “idyllic” existence. Kantor’s animal urges however soon threaten to shatter Josephine’s delusions of a happy life, causing untold hysteria, spite and death. On the slow side with a great deal of subtext and commentary about masculinity and femininity, it was a violent cannibalistic attack during a sexual tryst in the film’s finale that got the film noticed by the DPP.