Prey

Taking the franchise back to its roots, this Predator prequel restores a sense of tension and suspense to the extra-terrestrial hunter, resulting in the best film in the last 30 years of the series.

Premise: In 1719, Native American Naru (Amber Midthunder) wants to follow in her brother Taabe’s (Dakota Beavers) footsteps to become a hunter in the Comanche tribe, and sees an opportunity to prove herself when a search party is organised to hunt a mountain lion that attacked one of their tribe. But they have no idea that the forest also holds an alien hunter that is looking for worthy prey.

Review:

I’ve long been a fan of the Predator film series (and even read a lot of the spinoff novels and comic-books back in the 90s), but I think it’s fair to say that while the 1987 original is a stone-cold classic, and 1990’s Predator 2 is (in my view) an underrated and inventive sequel, the two belated sequels that followed (2010’s Predators and 2018’s The Predator) are much more of a mixed bag, and the two Alien vs. Predator films are, at best, only guilty B-movie pleasures.

It’s ironic then, that the first Predator film to drop the name from its title is actually by far the best in the series since the original two. Whereas The Predator arguably lost focus by trying to expand the series’ mythology too far, Prey returns to the purity of the first film’s original concept – the best of mankind finding themselves fighting to survive as prey for a far stronger, more advanced predator.

“…restores a sense of tension & mystery to series…”

The first two films gave the alien hunter a sense of mysteriousness that’s arguably been missing in many of the later instalments, to their detriment. Prey brings back the Predator’s mystique, and like the first two films, the plot is beautifully uncomplicated, following the characters’ journey of discovery as they slowly come to realise what is stalking them through the forest.

This back-to-basics approach is a stroke of genuine, restoring a sense of tension to series and making the Predator itself an inscrutable and genuinely scary foe for the first time in a long time. There’s a sense of dread and foreboding in Prey that has been missing from the franchise for some time, that’s arguably only heightened by the period setting and the fact that the human characters are even more technologically outmatched than usual.

“…Amber Midthunder is fantastic…”

I also wanted to give director Dan Trachtenberg and the rest of the filmmakers credit for making the effort to accurately represent the Comanche culture and history so well in this film, and for avoiding many of the traditional cliches and tropes that you might have come to expect from Hollywood depictions of Native Americans. The filmmakers’ commitment to authenticity even extended to releasing a dub of the film entirely in the Comanche language, and it’s also refreshing to see that this film has a main cast made up entirely of Indigenous Americans, without the need for any superfluous “White Saviour” character.

For that reason, audiences may not be familiar with most of the main cast, although the lead character, Naru, is played by Amber Midthunder, who some viewers may know from her TV work on Legion and Roswell, New Mexico. Midthunder is fantastic in this film, portraying the many conflicting layers to Naru’s character, as well as her evolution across the course of the movie. Dakota Beavers plays Naru’s brother, Taabe, and he also feels like a satisfyingly three-dimensional character rather than a straightforward and predictable archetype.

“…the action set-pieces are executed flawlessly…”

I also want to take a moment to mention how gorgeously shot this movie is. Director Dan Trachtenberg and director of photography Jeff Cutter make the most of the location shooting, really capturing the beauty of the natural surroundings and impressive vistas, while also giving other, more intimate scenes (like one lit entirely by torchlight) a truly cinematic quality. It’s a shame that, for whatever commercial reason, the decision was made to release this solely as an “original streaming movie” rather than giving it a theatrical release, as I think this could have looked even more visually impressive on the big screen.

While Prey does have more of a tension-creating slow-build than some of the other recent films in the Predator series, when the time comes, it certainly doesn’t skimp on the action. Whereas the action sequences in The Predator often felt a little muddled and were arguably its weakest part, the action set-pieces in Prey are executed flawlessly. There are several standout action sequences during the course of the movie, including one particularly impressive single-shot fight scene that could stand up alongside the best of anything else out there.

“the best ‘Predator’ film of the last thirty years…”

Ably led by Amber Midthunder as the ferocious and resourceful Naru, directed with beauty, tension and suspense by Dan Trachtenberg, from a stripped-back, minimalist script by Patrick Aison, Prey is a shot in the arm for a franchise whose best days seemed behind it. Prey is not only the best Predator film of the last thirty years, it’s one of the best Predator films full-stop.