Mark comforts Nancy, but the killer awakens and kills him by crushing his throat. 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. 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. 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. 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. Mark hikes into North Point to search for the Sylvesters and finds vultures consuming Greg and Gail's decomposing bodies. 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. Lester tells Mark a story about witnessing a young gypsy boy wandering the woods after the 1948 fire, horribly disfigured by burns. Meanwhile, Mark meets with head ranger Lester Tile, who informs him that he has received a call from the police regarding the disappearance of the Sylvesters. Assuming Gail and Greg returned home, the group leave a note behind at their campsite and decide to continue with their trip. Nancy finds a tree smeared with blood but dismisses it as being from an animal. The following morning, the others awaken to find Greg and Gail have disappeared along with their camping gear. During their first night in the woods, Gail is smothered with her sleeping bag by the killer, and Greg subsequently has his throat torn open. While purchasing their nature permits, the women speak with forest ranger Mark O'Brien, who tells them that few people venture into North Point. Several 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. Thirty two-years later, 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.

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.

Other film scholars have praised its languorous pacing, which accelerates considerably in the final act. Contemporary critical opinion of the film has varied, with its sparse dialogue and pacing being points of criticism. In 2019, Arrow Films completed a restoration of the film and released it on Blu-ray, marking the film's first home media release in North America since 1988. It was concurrently shown on premium television in Canada, and was later released on VHS by Thorn EMI in 1988. The Prey was acquired for distribution by New World Pictures, and released theatrically in the United States in November 1983, about four years after it was completed. Filming of The Prey took place in late 1979 in Idyllwild, California. Brown was previously a producer on one of their features, the softcore thriller Human Experiments (1979). Inspired by such films as The Hills Have Eyes (1977), it was written by director Brown and his wife, Summer, for Essex Productions, a studio specializing in adult films. It was the final film credit of Coogan, who died in 1984. It follows a group of campers in the Rocky Mountains who are stalked and murdered by a disfigured assailant. The Prey is a 1983 American slasher film directed by Edwin Brown, and starring Debbie Thureson, Steve Bond, Lori Lethin, and Jackie Coogan.

Preyfilm