Island Prey (2001)

I love this movie so much

Simply A Masterpiece

As Good As It Gets

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Don't get me wrong, this is a terrible, clichéd film, but it is a delight for fans of Olivia Hussey - quite possibly the most intoxicating beauty ever to grace the silver screen. One poster stated that she was unpleasant to look at - I wonder what his ideal woman looks like - Paris Hil-slut? Blockbuster should really establish a sub-genre to this type of film, as the Fatal Attraction plot has become a genre unto itself. When will Blockbuster adopt the "Adultry" section? It will fit in quite nicely between the drama and action sections, right? This film revolves around Olivia Hussey, who spends a night of passion with an unstable yacht owner who may have murdered his ex-wife, who looks remarkably like Ms. Hussey. This ne'er-do-well proceeds to stalk Olivia and thus make her life a living-hell. I like Olivia Hussey, but I have no sympathy for characters in movies that cheat on their spouses, so I really wasn't rooting for Olivia to make it out o this stinker alive.VIOLENCE: $$ (There is a smattering of violence in the film. Don Murray and Anthony John Denison get involved in a fisticuffs when Denison says that he will not stop seeing Olivia, Murray's wife, because she is just too good in bed. Olivia also gets to handle a shooter and might get to squeeze off a round - I'll let you watch).NUDITY: $$ (Olivia is the queen of brief nudity and supplies a little here. She has a love scene with Anthony John Denison and also has a shower scene - shot at a distance).STORY: $ (We've seen this plot before - a hundred times over, and oftentimes done much better. The true culprit, when trying to decipher why this film was a dud, is William Riead. The man's dialogue is sophomoric and moronic. The man has no story-telling abilities and fails to build believable human reactions to the plot. These people, of the upper strata of society, talk like middle school kids - with a habit of sleeping during English class. I have placed Riead on the Never-to-be-Viewed-Again list).ACTING: $$$ (The acting wasn't "phoned-in" as the insiders say, but was hindered a great deal by Riead's juvenile script. Olivia Hussey resorts to calling Anthony Jonh Denison "weird" and "crazy" to his face when he begins to stalk her. Hussey, who is still beautiful, delivers the best performance here but Denison was equal to the task of portraying a demented, love-crazed stalker. Don Murray was basically just there - his character not fleshed out, and Edward Asner, a terrific actor when given something with substance, is ill-used in this film).

**SPOILERS** Filmed on beautiful and sun drenched Santa Catalina Island the made for TV movie "Island Prey" is a West Coast version of "Fatal Attractions" where in this case it's the wife not husband who gets caught in the eye of the storm of an illicit and deadly affair.Looking to buy a 80 to 100 foot yacht Parker and Catherine Gaits, Don Murray & Olivia Hussey, get involved with the island boat expert Peter Thorton, Anton John Dennison, who immediately takes a fancy to the sophisticated and sexy Catherine who reminds him of his late wife. With Catherine's husband Parker leaving the island for the mainland for an important business meeting Peter sees his chance in getting "Cathy", as he calls her, alone and in the shack on his private bachelor pad his all in one, bed drinks and video equipment, sailboat.Spending the night together, in the most intimate of ways, Cathy feels that her affair with Peter is just what it is a one night stand and nothing more. It's later when Peter starts to call, at her and Parker's home, and run into Cathy at ever opportunity that she feels that he's somehow stalking her. At first trying to be civil with the extremely annoying Peter Cathy tells him to please lay off and, as kindly as she can make it, get out of her life.All this talk by Cathy about Peter leaving her, as well as her husband, alone only emboldened Peter to the point where he starts to blackmail her with a video tape that he secretly took of them getting it on together on his sailboat that faithful and extremely satisfying, to Peter, evening. Cathy knowing that she's not as innocent as she would hope that she is in her affair with Peter goes to her and Parkers lawyer Jay Roth, Edward Asner, for help in getting the pain in the a** Peter off her back. Jay right away sees through Cathy's act as the innocent as the morning snow wife knowing, probably from experience in handling cases like her's, that Peters attraction to her isn't that one sided but in fact mutual.Cathy letting all this get out of hand, instead of coming clean with Parker, has her affair with Peter to go down the road to destruction for everyone involved. Parker finds out about his wife's infidelities after Peter slipped the video tape, after he slipped into Parker's home, of his wife and himself having a go of it into their VCR. This leads a distraught Parker to leave his sea-side home at Santa Catalina Island wishing never to see Cathy again. Parker gets a change of heart when he realized that Cathy, despite her cheating on him, was manipulated by the scheming Peter, who it turns out is suspected by the police of murdering his first wife, and confronts him on his sailboat at the Santa Catalina Marina.The fireworks from that confrontation leads Parker to have a near fatal heart-attack with him ending laid up in the hospital on life support. It's then that the very sure of himself Peter then makes his move on Cathy, who by now has no one to look after her, and that move turned out be fatal for the smug and self assured Peter Thorton.The better then you would expect acting, especially by Olivia Husse, in a made for TV movie as well as the beautiful scenic photography in and around Santa Catalina Island more then makes up for the films very well worn and predictable plot. Peter Thorton beside his good looks and devil may care attitude in making Cathy's, and later Parker's, life a living hell also wore the most immaculately cleaned and pressed, I had trouble spotting a single dirt mark or crease on it, blue leisure shirt I've ever seen.***SPOILER ALERT*** It's just too bad that he had to get it ruined, with a couple bullets ripping into it, at the end of the movie.

The plot is plausible but banal, i.e., beautiful and neglected wife of wealthy and powerful man has a fling with a psychotic hunk, then tries to cover it up as the psycho stalks and blackmails her. But, what develops from there is stupefyingly illogical. Despite the resources that are available to the usual couple who has money and influence, our privileged hero and heroine appear to have only one domestic, their attorney and local police (who say they can do nothing) at their disposal while they grapple with suspense and terror. They have no private security staff (only a fancy security system that they mishandle), household or grounds staff, chauffeurs, etc. Not even, apparently, the funds to hire private round-the-clock nurses to care for the hero when he suffers life-threatening injuries, leaving man and wife alone and vulnerable in their mansion. Our heroine is portrayed as having the brains of a doorknob and our hero, a tycoon, behaves in the most unlikely and irrational manner. The production is an insult to viewers who wasted their time with this drivel and a crime for having wasted the talents of veteran actors Oliva Hussey and Don Murray (what were they thinking?). And, shame on Lifetime TV for insulting the intelligence of its audience for this insipid offering.

Don Murray plays an older husband wronged by his neglected wife in this rather thin thriller. It's "Fatal Attraction" reversed, with none of the heart-clenching moments and little sympathy for the adulterer. Olivia Hussey fails to sustain any believable level of emotion as she frets over the ramifications and complications of her wrongdoings, and it doesn't help that many of her lines are so vanilla-plain, e.g., "It's not a problem." Otherwise, the movie has a certain watchability due to the presence of Murray and Edward Asner (as the couple's bemused lawyer). Most of all, I wonder where a movie like this comes from, as I certainly don't remember it showing at any theaters.