Let Us Prey (2014)
Dir. Brian O'Malley
Scr. David Cairns, Fiona Watson
Starring: Pollyanna McIntosh, Liam Cunningham,
Douglas Russell, Bryan Larkin, Hanna Stanbridge, Niall Greig Fulton
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Brian O'Malley's Let Us Prey, is a rip-snortingly scary, utterly demented supernatural take on John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, which, for added kick, is liberally sprinkled with plenty of Irish Whiskey and smothered with globs of bloody haggis (as its Irish-Scottish co-pro roots demand).
If you've seen Lucky McKee's delectably vile The Woman, you already know what a great actress (and babe) Pollyanna McIntosh is. Well, praise be to Jesus and Lucifer, Let Us Prey serves up McIntosh's va-va-va-voom frame of womanhood stuffed into the tasty sausage sack of a form-fitting cop's uniform. Unlike McKee's picture, though, this plucky lassie is not about to be hung up nude in a barn and used for sexual gratification, but likeThe Woman, she more than admirably gets to exact major-league ultra-violent payback upon a fine selection of despicable scumbags.
Using the taut, imaginative screenplay by David Cairns and Fiona Watson as his blueprint for madness, helmer O'Malley skillfully leads us into the fiery pits of the first official night on the job for a newbie female cop in a Bonny Scottish police station located in the most remote locale imaginable (which, is pretty much all of Scotland, so there's always going to be weird stuff going on in that blessed country).
As you already know it's a variation on the great John Carpenter station-house-under-siege picture, it's best not to spoil things with too many details. All you need to understand before going in is that an event occurs which spirals out of control as the cop shop is besieged by evil filth of the highest order and, of course, MUST be dispatched -- with, of course, extreme prejudice.
We get an alcoholic thug, a mass murderer, a self-flagellating killer of buff, young fellas and amongst some garden variety corrupt, murderous cops, there's a child-raping kidnapper who may or may not be a demon from the utter depths of Hell itself. Of all nights, this is one in which our plucky heroine might have wished she'd been home washing her hair and eating bonbons in front of the telly.
But such is not to be the case.
Violence must be done by a hot babe and we, the audience, are all the better for it.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-half-stars
Let Us Prey is now available on a gorgeously transferred BluRay and DVD combo pack via Raven Banner Entertainment and Anchor Bay Canada.