The Forgotten Adventure Thriller That Still Terrifies Over Half A Century Later

The Naked Prey begins with an unnamed safari guide (credited only as “Man,” played by Cornel Wilde) taking his clients deep into the veldt on a wild elephant hunt. When the group enters territory controlled by a local tribe, the man who has paid for the expedition angers the tribal leader when he refuses to pay a toll for passage.

Later that night, the tribal village warriors launch a surprise attack on the hunting party and manage to spear and kill nearly every single man in the group.

The lucky ones die during the attack. The guide and four other survivors are taken captive by the warriors and marched back to the village by daybreak.

They are greeted by the tribal leader and the members of the entire community, who have all assembled to participate in the suffering that is about to be unleashed upon them.

The hunting party survivors are killed one by one using brutal, though creative, forms of torture. The investor is shoved into a ring of fire with a venomous snake that has been agitated.

Another man is trussed and dressed like a bird, forced to hop away as a large group of women and children chase him down and stab him with knives.

The Naked Prey sees another man lashed with ropes until he bleeds to death. The most horrifying death sees a man covered entirely with clay (save for the breathing reed that’s secured in his mouth) and slowly cooked over a spit while the villagers roast him alive.

As the guide was seen admonishing the investor for his impudence prior to the attack, he is given a fighting chance to survive.

The guide is stripped naked and placed in front of a line of five of the village’s best warriors. A spear is thrown, which the guide must run to.

As soon as he reaches it, a warrior will take off in pursuit, with subsequent warriors following as each warrior reaches that same spear.

The Naked Prey sees the guide grab a spear that was thrown at him and use it to kill the first of the five warriors. With four coming in hot pursuit, he must find a way to survive the harsh elements and the cunning skills of the men who wish to kill him.

The Naked Prey has little dialogue after the capture of the hunting party, relying on the visual terrors that play out on the screen as a way to tell its story.

During the lengthy chase of the guide, authentic tribal drums and chants are used in place of traditional Western cinematic scoring and work to give the film an intense sense of authenticity.

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Cornel Wilde does more for The Naked Prey without much dialogue than many actors of his day could do with a script packed with lines.

Audiences can see the combination of grief and fear on his face while his party is tortured to death, and come away from it with the sense that he knows that each of them are getting what they deserve.

The Naked Prey isn’t available on any streaming service, but you can catch this action thriller on AppleTV.