THE PREY

In 1948, a wildfire ravages the North Point section of the Keen Wild national forest in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, decimating a rural community of gypsies who live in seclusion in a cave. In 1980, older couple Frank and Mary Sylvester are camping in North Point one night when they are both murdered with an axe by an unseen figure.

A few weeks later, three young couples from California — Nancy and Joel, Bobbie and Skip, and Greg and Gail — embark on a hiking excursion in North Point. While purchasing their nature permits, the women speak with forest ranger Mark O'Brien, who tells them that few people venture into North Point. During their first night, Gail is smothered with her sleeping bag by the killer (an unusually tall man with a burned face), and Greg subsequently has his throat torn open. The following morning, the others awaken to find Greg and Gail have disappeared along with their gear. Nancy finds a tree smeared with blood but dismisses it as being from an animal. Assuming Gail and Greg went home, the group leave a note behind at their campsite and decide to continue with their trip. Meanwhile, Mark meets with head ranger Lester Tile, who informs him that he has received a call from the police regarding the Sylvesters' disappearance. Lester tells Mark a story about witnessing a young gypsy boy wandering the woods after the 1948 fire, horribly disfigured by burns.

Skip and Joel decide to hike to the infamous Suicide Peak to rappel down, while Nancy and Bobbie suntan at the base of the peak along a river. Mark hikes into North Point to search for the Sylvesters and finds vultures consuming Greg and Gail's decomposing bodies. Meanwhile, as Joel rappels down the peak, the killer breaks Skip's neck and cuts Joel's rope, causing him to fall to his death. Nancy and Bobbie hear his screams and run to the peak, where they are confronted by the disfigured killer: the gypsy boy from Lester's story, now fully grown, and with razor-sharp claws.

Nancy and Bobbie flee down the peak in terror, but Bobbie stumbles into one of the killer's booby traps, which lifts her into the air and thrashes her against a tree, killing her. Cornered by the killer, Nancy faces him alone until Mark appears, shooting him with a tranquilizer gun and bashing him in the face with a large stick. Mark comforts Nancy, but the killer awakens and kills him by crushing his throat. Instead of attacking Nancy, the killer smiles as he reaches softly towards her.

Some months later, during springtime, the crying of an infant — implicitly that of Nancy and the killer — is heard emanating from a cave in the mountains.

The killer, revealed as the disfigured survivor of the 1948 wildfire, attacks the remaining campers until he is confronted and shot by Mark, the forest ranger.

The climax ties the terror back to the wildfire’s tragic aftermath, showing the killer as a product of past trauma rather than pure evil. By rooting the horror in a specific backstory, The Prey gives its antagonist a motivation that sets it apart from faceless slashers, and the forest ranger's intervention offers a grim but decisive resolution.