This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper.
If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: 5 August 2022
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Distributor: 20th Century Studios / Disney+
Budget: $65 million
Stars: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Bennett Taylor, Michelle Thrush, and Dane DiLiegro
The Plot:
In 1719, on the Great Plains, Comanche warrior Naru (Midthunder) finds herself fighting to protect her people not only from French fur traders destroying the buffalo they rely on for survival but also from a vicious, humanoid alien (DiLiegro) that hunts humans for sport!
The Background:
Predator (McTiernan, 1987) quickly evolved from a high-budget B-movie that had Jean-Claude Van Damme running around a jungle in a bug suit into a box office hit heralded as one of the best of its genre. After a troubled development, Predator 2 (Hopkins, 1990) failed to match the first film’s box office despite positive reviews and it would be twenty years before Predators (Antal, 2010) ignored the sequels and crossovers and proved a minor hit. Sadly, this meant that hopes for a direct sequel were quashed when the studio opted for a soft re-quel; unfortunately, despite the return of Predator writer Shane Black and a respectable box office gross, The Predator (ibid, 2018) divided critics and any hopes of a sequel were put on hold after 20th Century Fox was purchased by the Walt Disney Company in 2017. It wasn’t long before development of a fifth entry (initially titled “Skulls”) got underway, however; director Dan Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison’s pitch of a prequel that returned to the franchise’s roots was approved and the filmmakers even considered having the film’s characters speaking exclusively in Comanche. Trachtenberg specifically cast Dan DiLiegro as the iconic hunter as he wanted a leaner, more agile version of the Predator; the creature’s entire design was revamped, though DiLiegro still had to suffer in an uncomfortable suit throughout the shoot. Four weeks of weapons, team-building, and communications training saw star Amber Midthunder gain prowess in axe throwing, and filming attracted much attention and support from the Native American community and the film was praised for its historical accuracy in depicting Comanche society. Prey was released exclusively on streaming services, becoming the most-watched premiere on Hulu in the United States at the time, and was widely regarded as being the greatest Predator sequel yet. Critics praised the tension and atmosphere, its strong and capable heroine, and the thrilling balance of action, emotion, and gore; its success effectively reinvigorated the franchise and left the door open for further films.
The Review:
Prey kind of came out of nowhere for me; I suspected that Disney would want to profit from their acquisition of 20th Century Fox’s properties but it seemed as though the franchise was sadly dead in the water after the disastrous effort that was The Predator. As someone who thoroughly enjoyed Predators, I had been hoping for some kind of follow-up to that film’s cliff-hanger and, instead, we got this weird mish-mash of a bunch of elements from the previous three films and a controversial depiction of autism as some kind of superpower. I enjoyed the effects, some of the characters and humour, and a few aspects of The Predator but it still dropped the ball and I was convinced that the next step at trying to kick-start the franchise would be to lure back either Arnold Schwarzenegger or Danny Glover (or both) and drop us back in the jungle again. For me, each Predator film should try something different; I might not be a fan of AVP: Alien vs. Predator (Anderson, 2004) but at least it was unique in its snow setting, its three Predators, and the clash between alien species so I was intrigued by the idea of a prequel. Dropping the highly advanced and adaptable alien hunter into an era where automatic weapons and modern technology weren’t really a thing is a great way to recapture the raw nature of the first film, especially the final act where Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer (Schwarzenegger) is left to rely on his “Boy Scout shit” to survive, and I’d love to see the Predator picking soldiers off the battlefield in No Man’s Land, stalking cowboys in the Old West, or lurking in the misty shadows of Plague-era London almost as much as I’d enjoy visiting their home world or a film set further into the future. Plus, a smaller budget lacking in big-name actors meant more focus on the creature, the battle for survival, and had the potential for a higher reward in terms of box office and reception; low risk and high reward is a model that’s worked pretty well for other genre films and I was pleased to see it pay off in Prey‘s reception.
Prey revolves around a Comanche tribe, back before the then-modern world absolutely ravaged their lands with industry and Christianity. Our main character, Naru, is something of an outcast in her tribe; tradition demands that she follow her calling as a healer but, in secret, she trains to be a warrior like her brother, Taabe (Beavers). Alongside her faithful canine companion Sarii (Coco), Naru works on her tomahawk-throwing skills out in the forests and showcases a considerable talent with accuracy and proficiency but also at hunting, as she’s able to sneak up on a deer undetected. When the deer is startled, Naru demonstrates her impressive cardio and parkour-like skills, racing through the forest, hopping over and under trees with a deftness and determination, and also her talent for medicine after Sarii’s tail is caught in an iron trap that puzzles her in its design. Later, Naru fashions a weapon unique to her by tying her tomahawk to a length of hand-made roping, not unlike a roped kunai, and demonstrates her grace under pressure when she falls into a swamp-like bog and is able to haul herself to safety rather than giving in to panic. While out in the forest, Naru catches sight of the Predator’s cloaked ship breaching Earth’s atmosphere and interpets it as a Thunderbird, a sign that she needs to prove herself. Despite showing talent in many areas, Naru’s motivation for wanting to hunt is simply: nobody in the tribe believes she’s capable of it (even her mother, Aruka (Thrush) questions her desire) and she’s determined to prove them wrong. Taaba, who paints himself up in half-ghost face, is a great hunter; when Naru was young and being taken to gather herbs, he was learning the skills that allow him to shoot an eagle out of the sky with barely a glance. His relationship with Naru is a complex and surprisingly realistic one; they wind each other up like most siblings but, while she believes she’s ready to prove herself, Taabe has his doubts. He knows, from first-hand experience, the difference between picking off prey that’s either unaware or incapable of defending itself and taking on something that actively hunts its quarry.
Still, when Taabe joins the search party to rescue Huupi (Tymon Carter) from a mountain lion, he vouches for Naru’s tracking and medicinal skills, though it’s not enough to completely win over the prejudice of his fellow hunters, particularly Wasape (Stormee Kipp). Even after she tends to Huupi’s wounds, Wasape gives her grief and their antagonism boils over into an intense brawl when he’s sent to retrieve her and is met with defiance and tales of a mupitsl, a monster from her tribe’s children’s stories, lurking in the forest. Paaka (Corvin Mack) has equal disregard for Naru, believing she’s too afraid to be of use and, like Wasape and Naru’s other doubters, he meets a gruesome end as a result of his condescending nature. Unfortunately, Naru misses out on her big moment thanks to a distraction from the Predator; when Taabe returns to the village with the lion’s beheaded carcass, he’s named the tribe’s War Chief and, fully confident that he can tackle whatever other threats are out there when the time comes, leaves Naru heartbroken when he voices his own distrust in her abilities, regardless of her clear hunting skill. Determined to prove herself, Naru shirks her duties and heads out beyond the ridge with Sarii, finding more of the Predator’s tracks (and even some of its distinctive luminous blood), a herd of rotting, skinned bison, and a grizzly bear. Forced to take shelter when her weapons fail her, this affords Naru her first gruesome glance of the true alien menace lurking on her lands, a creature she cannot understand and so believes to be the fictional mupitsl come to life. Bound and helpless, it’s all Naru can do to free herself from her bonds when the Predator attacks Wasape and his fellow hunters, but her experience proves invaluable at seeing what the creature is capable of and spotting the warning signs of its bolt gun.
Although it appears as though the Predator is responsible for slaughtering the buffalo herd (skinning creatures is its modus operandi, after all), this is actually the work of a brutish group of French voyageurs. Compared to the Comanche, the voyageurs are almost Viking-like savages; they growl and bark in an unintelligible French dialect and wield far more advanced weaponry, including rifles and gunpowder. After she’s taken captive by them, Naru is approached by Raphael Adolini (Taylor), an Italian man who acts as a translator between the two groups and who both speculates on the nature of the Predator and reveals that the voyageurs have encountered the creature before. When she refuses to talk, their leader, “Big Beard” (Mike Paterson), wounds Taabe with a cut across his torso and the two are strung up as bait for the Predator. Although we see a fleeting shot of it within the first ten minutes or so, we don’t actually see it unobscured until about fifty minutes in, with much of the first act being built around echoing the slowly mounting tension regarding the creature to reflect the confusion and superstition felt by the Comanche. There’s a particularly simple, yet striking, sequence that showcases both the Predator’s looming menace and the film’s themes of predatory hierarchy; an ant unknowingly crawls over the cloaked Predator’s leg before being eaten by a rat, which is then struck by a snake, which in turn is slaughtered by the Predator’s wrist blades, with all of this framed to show just how close the alien was to Taabe and the others without them realising it. As is tradition with every new Predator movie, this Predator is both familiar but decidedly different, perhaps more than any Predator before and not just by virtue of being bigger and tougher. This Predator sports decidedly outdated technology, including a skull-like mask more bone than mechanical, a laser-guided bolt gun rather than the traditional plasma cannon, and few of the more technologically advanced weaponry of its brethren. Whether this is by design or by choice, it means this Predator is much more about getting up close and personal with its prey, stalking them with its thermal vision and favouring both hand-to-hand combat and its wrist blades rather than smoke and mirrors. Yet, despite all of this, the Predator still only kills prey it deems worthy; it has no interest in helpless bait and leaves Naru be when she’s caught in an animal trap since she’s no longer a threat or capable of putting up a decent fight. Additionally, in a twist on the usual formula of Predator protagonists using mud to obscure their body heat, Prey sees Naru’s medicinal knowledge to accomplish the same result.
The Nitty-Gritty:
Right from the start, Prey is a very different kind of Predator movie; being set in the wide-open flatlands and dense forests of the Great Plains, the movie eschews the stifling jungles and anarchy of the city streets for a more open and, dare I say it, cinematic presentation. Through its visuals and its haunting melody, the film has more in common with the likes of Dances with Wolves (Costner, 1990) and spends a great deal of time establishing the society, lore, and lifestyle of the Comanche tribe. While I’m no expert in Native Americans, I found the film to really benefit from this approach and its attention to detail; we get sporadic uses of their native tongue and the voyageurs speak exclusively in a guttural French (without subtitles), the Comanche are painted up individually to represent their personalities, their clothing consists of simple robes, their village is made up of tepees, they adorn themselves with feathers and necklaces, and their weapons are hand-made. Crude, yes, but these are simple, primitive times and folk, yet their bows, arrows, tomahawks, and hunting skills are no less formidable and they’re fully capable of sustaining themselves through traditional hunting prowess and restraint. Consequently, they don’t indiscriminately hunt simply for sport or the thrill of it, but to survive, meaning that the presence of French voyageurs greatly disrupts their ecosystem as they haphazardly slaughter the local buffalo.
This Predator isn’t just about the wholesale slaughter of human beings; given when the film takes place and the many instances of primitive weaponry seen in the film, it’s possible that humanity hasn’t yet caught the attention of the alien hunters. Observing the local wildlife, this Predator stalks all prey, not just humans; it tracks a ravenous wolf, gutting and mutilating it to add another trophy to its belt. This Predator’s preference to fight up close with its prey makes it far more aggressive and susceptible to injury; the Predator wrestles with the grizzly bear with its bare hands, its wounds only fuelling its aggression, and seems to take great pride in showcasing its superior strength over the wild animal, holding it aloft to be drenched in its blood in a fantastically gory and striking shot. Having witnessed Wasape and Naru brawl and assessing the weaponry of the tribe, the Predator strikes, killing Wasape with its bolt gun and slicing off limbs, heads, and impaling Taabe’s kinsmen with its separatable combistick. Although it lacks the explosive impact of the traditional plasma cannon, the Predator’s bolt gun allows for some fun and bloody kills; it still uses the iconic red targeting system, but fires three arrow-like projectiles on a predetermined path. There are quite a few drawbacks to this primitive version of the plasma cannon; for one, it allows some leeway for its victims to potentially survive, and the targeting system comes back to bite the Predator in the finale but it’s an interesting way of showing how the Predator’s technology evolved over time and almost puts it on more equally ground with the primitive tribespeople. Although the French boast more advanced weaponry than the Comanche (and attempt to capture and kill the creature with traps of their own), the Predator’s superior strength and weaponry sees them all reduced to bloody corpses; the Predator sports its constricting net trap, electroshock bolas, a retractable bulletproof shield that also doubles as a razor sharp projectile, leaves its gauntlet behind as an explosive surprise, and even uses the humans’ own weapons against them by throwing a foothold trap right at a voyager’s head! Not to be outdone, Naru doesn’t abandon Sarii, even in the face of the Predator’s near-supernatural menace, when she’s held captive by the voyageurs, mercilessly killing them all with her roped tomahawk to get her to safety.
With the French brutalised by the Predator, the mutilated Adolini begs Naru to help him and teaches her how to load and use his flintlock pistol; although she’s able to stem his bleeding and mask his body heat and he tries playing dead, he ends up dead anyway when the Predator steps on his body and stabs him when he screams. Taabe then rides in on horseback to attack the Predator with its own weapons; with his speed and skill with a bow, Taabe is able to land several shots on the Predator all while Naru struggles to load Adolini’s pistol in a strikingly effective commentary on the clunky inefficiency of then-modern technology compared to her tribe’s more direct methods. Unfortunately, Taabe is unable to kill or even mortally wound the Predator and Naru is forced to watch her brother be slaughtered right before her eyes. The last one standing, Naru takes a moment to expel her grief and anguish and then mounts her final stand against this seemingly unstoppable monster; ambushing the shellshocked Big Beard, she severs one of his legs and leaves him Andolini’s unloaded pistol to make him an easy target for the Predator as payback for him hurting her brother, then makes use of her herbs to mask her body heat and take the Predator by surprise. A bullet to the back of its head might only be a flesh wound to the alien hunter, but it’s enough to again expose its horrific visage (which is also a far cry from the usual Predator appearance) and allow her to steal its helmet, driving the creature into a vengeful frenzy. Naru prepares an elaborate trap around the bog using carved wooden spikes, not unlike Dutch’s later tactics, and places the helmet in full view to lure her prey in. While physically outmatched by the far larger and stronger creature, Naru’s speed, wiles, and determination see her strike with a wild tenacity, using herself as bait to draw the Predator closer on her own terms, a tactic that allows her to allow use its weapons against it and severe its right arm. While Wasape mocked Naru using her “leash” for her weapon, it proves vital in trapping the Predator in the quagmire of the bog; goading the creature using both Taabe’s and Dutch’s words, Naru tricks the Predator into firing its bolt gun at her, which sees its projectiles kill it instead. Exhausted and injured, Naru returns to her village with the Predator’s severed head and its blood splashed across her face like war paint; having proved herself beyond measure, she’s named as the new War Chief, but tribal paintings allude to the inevitable return of the alien hunters, if only to claim Adolini’s pistol…
The Summary:
For a movie that’s so visually and narratively removed from the Predator franchise, Prey does a wonderful job of getting back to the basics and roots of the series. Setting the film hundreds of years in the past and focusing on a primitive, but highly skilled and spiritual Comanche tribe, was a fantastic way of reframing the Predator narrative into a fresh and original presentation while still paying homage to the themes of horror and survival that made the first film as memorable as its abundance of machismo. Naru is a very strong and determined young woman, easily the equal of her more celebrated male rivals, and really comes across as a formidable opponent for the Predator thanks to her adaptability, intelligence, and ability to see what others miss. While I’m a sucker for well-armed protagonists getting picked off by a superior force because they rely too much on their weaponry, I really enjoyed the higher stakes on offer in Prey as everyone is using such limited and primitive weaponry. Even the French, with their cumbersome rifles and gunpowder, are no match for this, probably the most brutal and aggressive Predator that isn’t bulked up on steroids. This Feral Predator is a hands-on kinda guy, slaughtering whatever creatures take its fancy and sporting some unique, if primitive, technology alongside its more familiar toys. I can see why so many people praised Prey for being the best film in the franchise for some time; it’s definitely better than The Predator, and I’m really excited for the possibilities of other Predator films exploring other time periods, and overall this was a highly enjoyable horror that told an entertaining coming-of-age story and showed that there’s still life in this under-rated franchise yet.
My Rating:
Great Stuff
Did you enjoy Prey? How do you think it compares to other films in the franchise? What did you think to Naru’s character, the obstacles she overcame and her solutions to those problems? Would you have liked to see more from the Comanche tribe and their society? What did you think to the Feral Predator, its different technology and its more aggressive personality? What time periods or situations would you like to see the Predator dropped into in the future? Which of the Predator sequels and merchandise was your favourite and did you celebrate Predator Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Prey, feel free to leave a comment below or drop your thoughts on my social media.
