Streaming Availability: Hulu
"You think that I am not a hunter like you. That I am not a threat. That is what makes me dangerous. You can't see that I'm killing you. And it won't either."
Is this Prey the best Predator movie?
Well, it is the only good one following Predator 2. For this series I skipped over Predators and The Predator, the two non-Alien related sequels, and you did not miss much. Both of these movies were trying to be the next Predator 1, with these big casts of badass action heroes. The Predator even brought back Shane Black to direct... and what a shame thaat was. He's trying his best with quips! Sterling K. Brown sure is chewing a lot of bubblegum and smirking in that movie. Predators 3 and 4, I guess you can call them, are both really messy script-wise. Both movies feel like they're missing scenes. The Predator, for example, posits a theory that neurodiversity is the next stage in human evolution, that old savant trope which was offensive already before we learned the Predators want to steal an autistic boy because he's the greatest threat in the world. I think Hollywood has finally stopped doing this gross shit, and thank god.
These movies that miss the Predator for the jungle, if you will. They do not realize what makes the Predator work as a creature, where this monster needs to live. This alien is not just an action movie villain, the Predator had a very specific niche in his first two movies. This monster lives in places of conflict, invisibly between enemy lines. Predator 1 is all about US interventions overseas, Predator 2 could be argued to be about that violence coming home (negatively in the form of scary immigrants, but that movie's politics are bad). This isn't merely a scary hunter with Batman gadgets, it is a parasite on conflicts. And none of the Alien vs Predator movies get this, Predators thought it was all about The Most Game Dangerous aspect, and finally The Predator thought it needed to be a complete piece of shit.
Prey actually gets it. There is the Prequel aspect where they feel the need to explain the antique 1715 pistol at the end of Predator 2. I never felt any need to meet Raphael Adolini, and honestly Prey isn't interested in him either. He's such an incidental part of this movie, like the studios demanded this intertext fanservice and director Dan Trachtenberg had to oblige. The movie is really about the ongoing conflict between Native Americans and Europeans. Of course a Predator would be drawn here, right at the moment that Europeans began conquering the entire Earth. If they're nibbling at the borders of the American Empire, they also should have been here in our origins too.
I've said this before, but aliens typically represent the future. Speculative fiction is rarely a period piece. However, the alien concept fits extremely well right here. What's happening to our characters, members of the Comanche Nation in the early 18th century, is an invasion by two different kinds of alien peoples. Our protagonist, Naru (Amber Midthunder), comes across a herd of slain and skinned buffalo. Cow mutilations are another element in the seemingly endless varieties of modern UFO mythology. You assume what's doing this is the invisible Predator (Dane DiLiegro), who Prey cuts back to multiple times to show murdering animals for sport. Naru's tribe is strangely nervous about going beyond the ridge line, not telling her what has them so spooked. But the Predator does not kill herbivores. There are things from another world that are much worse: French fur trappers.
The early eighteenth century is the first time trapper parties begin showing interest in North America's interior. Europeans had been in the New World for centuries, conquering the empires further south and taking small bites at the Eastern Seaboard. This was going to radically change the lives and societies of every Native culture. The Comanche in 1719, for example, are not yet the mounted steppe nomads they would become by the mid-century, with the entire nation traveling by horseback. Horses were only just being introduced to the Americas by Europeans, and wild herds of horses would eventually make their way to the Plains. Naru's main companion is a dog, Sarii (Coco).
Oh, we've had a very rough history with dogs this month. There are a lot of dead pets in alien movies: The Thing from Anther World, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Alien³, Signs, etc. etc. Well, I have good news: Sarii lives! Good dog.
I cannot say with 100% certainty how accurate the depiction of Comanche life is in Prey. I'm extremely not an expert on this stuff. Prey was shot in English but Hulu offers an alternate dub in the Comanche language. I can only assume the dub is authentic. One thing that's interesting is that the European characters speak in French in both dubs. Movies make conscious choices when they choose which people get to speak English for their audience, The Hunt for Red October famously turns Russian into English so audiences feel more connected to the Soviet crew. (Whether or not this is a good thing is another question, I'd rather hear Russian or Comanche, but mass English-speaking audiences prefer English.) In Prey, French is purposefully left untranslated in the subtitles. The trappers are not your people. They're filthy, nasty, dangerous fools, and Prey has no hesitation to murder dozens of them.
One thing that's became clear to me watching all these Predator movies is how much more violent things are in the 2020s than in the 1980s. John Wick's effect on action cinema over the last decade has been enormous, fight choreography is much more impressive now than it was then. Arnold would just spray and pray, Naru in this movie is fast, nimble, and fatally creative in her stabbing. There is just an overwhelming amount of talent to make - there's no other word it - awesome fight scenes in modern filmmaking. Naru starts this movie hesitating and unable to kill a mountain lion. Later it comes to the French, she'll kill six or seven of them in the span of two minutes, stabbing away like a very bloody superhero, to rescue Sarii. The Predator too gets to massacre these guys with gleeful abandon, they are cannon fodder. It really makes the finale of Predator 1 seem slow and cruddy in comparison.
Prey ends up being a less comedic movie, there's few gags in the script. Naru struggles all movie to prove to her tribe that she can transcend gender boundaries. The Comanche were a patriarchal culture, nobody is pretending otherwise. It is actively a question whether or not she should be out there, especially when she's making simple mistakes and unable to kill a normal Earth bear. She has a good relationship with her brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers), the golden child of the family, already war chief at a young age. Taabe at least will give her a chance. The other teenagers in his group are cruel bullies. There's a scene where Taabe is absent and his gang capture Naru to bring her home, and this scene is really disturbing, you're afraid where it might lead. Same with the French later. It is a far cry from "goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus".
I'm less in love with the design of this Predator. I like that he's lean and Dane DiLiegro gives him height and speed, versus the plodding lunks from AVP. But there's something weird about how the script calls this one a "Feral Predator", which is bringing in some ugly politics. He's less civilized than the previous ones? I would not think in such terms if your movie is championing peoples who were themselves widely considered "feral" and "savages". One major change is that the Predator's face is fully CG, so the jaws open much wider. The costuming looks different. The new mask evokes a cow skull, he's shirtless, actually he's dressed like a Native American in some ways. The Predator monster has been racially-coded in ways I'm less and less comfortable with, so it is weird to see him look more like our heroes. Script-wise, this one is less "honorable" than the Predators that have come before (which is horses shit, Predators have been sore losers since 1987). Taabe actually is giving this alien a good challenge before the monster cheats with his invisibility cloak.
It therefore comes to Naru to finally complete her hunt training. The final fight is great. It also is one of those times that a very neat script actually works to a film's advantage. Everything Naru has learned about these woods and how the Predator works is used in this fight: the quicksand swamp, her magic herbs that lower body temperature, Sarii as a distraction, the Predator's laser guidance system. Sometimes it's really clever, who could not cheer when Naru tricks the Predator into cutting off his own arm? Or when he auto-locks onto his own head? I wish this movie had come to theaters so I could have heard a crowd roar at that one.
Yeah, movies are good sometimes, man. I stand by it: best Predator movie. Prey even avoids 90% of the cliche call-back quotes of the other movies. Taabe does say if "it it bleeds, we can kill it", and to the script's credit, it makes sense at the moment and is not groan-worthy.
Dan Trachtenberg is making a whole new Predator movie for 2025 called "Badlands", which sadly will not bring back Naru. I would love to see more of Amber Midthunder and Dakota Beavers, just recast them in new roles please. Then like this very week, I found out there's a different currently unnamed Predator movie coming out before that, also being directed by Trachtenberg. So there's a lot of Predator coming down the pike. (Plus an Alien TV show set on Earth created by Noah Hawley!) Disney is gonna exploit the heck out of their Fox alien properties, I guess. But if you come out with good actors, creators with ideas about what to do with the material, you can keep franchises rolling. Being the seventh movie in your series need not be a sin. Even Alien: Romulus was promising in its first half with a young cast and a good idea, until it turned into schlock replays of the other movies.
Uch, I still hate that movie.
...
And that wraps up that. Spooky Season ends with Halloween. A lot of good movies this year. Turns out thirty-one reviews was woefully insufficient to cover the whole history of aliens in horror films. Just off to the top of my head, I should have covered Planet of the Vampires, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the other two Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Pitch Black, Virus, The Vast of Night, Nope, Under the Skin, the Quiet Place series, Critters, could I write a whole review of Annihilation again? Why not? Annihilation is one of the best movies ever made! Obviously we'll have to do this again. I really should try to cover more alien films that are not Anglo-American and don't star white people next time. It felt overdue to watch Prey in Comache.
So aliens will be back one Spooky Season or another. Not next year though.
Happy Halloween! Be very generous to the like two trick-or-treaters you might get.
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