If you don’t want to see a guy get beat up with his own cut-off arm, do you even like action movies?

Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Ready Player One still flying the flag for beloved touchstones of the Reagan years, we’re looking back on some unsung gems from the 1980s—the movies from that decade that deserve their own loyal fan followings.
Deadly Prey (1987)
Calling Deadly Prey a “good” movie isn’t an accurate statement, but calling it a “bad” movie doesn’t quite work, either. Deadly Prey exists in that twilight world occupied by films like Miami Connection and Dangerous Men, where the passion and dedication of its creators—not to mention the fun you have while watching it—make it impossible to discount a film entirely, even if the filmmaking itself is undeniably incompetent.
Deadly Prey was directed by David A. Prior, one of the great backyard auteurs of the VHS era who spent the ’80s and much of the ’90s pumping out dozens of no-budget action, horror, and sci-fi movies on his own direct-to-video AIP (that’s Action International Pictures) label. In interviews, Prior, who died in 2015, spoke of filmmaking like one might speak of selling used cars: a reliable way to make money that’s even more reliable if you finance and distribute your own product. (At least, during the VHS era. In the digital age, he said, the market became far too saturated for little guys to profit.) But there must have been something besides finances motivating Prior to make movies. After all, he released three films in 1987 alone, and even with minimal attention to detail and a rushed shooting schedule—things that are both evident in the sloppy set decoration and oddly pitched performances in Deadly Prey—there are less strenuous ways to earn a buck.
One clue might lie in Prior’s fascination with films about Vietnam veterans out for revenge. Aside from Deadly Prey—which, plot-wise, is little more than The Most Dangerous Game crossed with First Blood—he made Killzone (1985), Hell On The Battleground (1989), Night Wars (1988), and Operation Warzone (1988), all of which deal with Vietnam vets being traumatized in some way. There are few confirmed facts about Prior’s life before he started making movies, but he was born in 1955, which, whether he served or not, would have made the Vietnam War a formative event of his youth. What demons was Prior trying to exorcise rounding up friends and fading movie stars, handing them fake machine guns, and making them run through the scrub-covered hills of Southern California playing at war?