A poor and tasteless motion-picture entertainment, redeemed somewhat by its authentic African setting and its effective use of tribal drums and native music as the accompaniment for a primitive jungle chase.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Moderately pretentious, though very well filmed, this was the sort of thing teenage boys throve on in the dark ages Before Spielberg.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
It's a film of tension and spectacle, with a singular point of view behind it. It grabs the viewer thoroughly, even as it invites audiences to watch it with a cold, careful eye.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The film itself remains pure fantasy. Sure, it's nice to think you could outrun half a dozen hand-picked African warriors simply because you'd been to college and read Thoreau, but the truth is they'd nail you before you got across the river and into the trees.
The Naked Prey has the brute force of great pulp; there's little dialogue, and even much of that is untranslated African dialect. Yet much as Wilde strives to express man's animal nature, he isn't crude or culturally insensitive, so much as sharply attuned to the hideous offenses that put his character in such a bind.