The Naked Prey

It would be all too easy to write off this fascinating oddity as another "white man in a savage land" film, with safari guide Wilde taken captive by an African tribe and then set loose so it can hunt him down. Anyone who has ever seen this grimly riveting film is likely to recall the spectacle of a man encased in mud being roasted alive over an open fire—the height of savage torture. In fact, as film scholar Stephen Prince persuasively argues on a commentary track, The Naked Prey inverts many of the conventions of Hollywood films about "the Dark Continent." The warriors are given more character depth than Wilde's protagonist, and the film seems seriously engaged in a debate over whether man is driven by Darwinian brutality or rises above it.