Prey Tracks Down Echoes Of The Original Predator Film

The latest movie in the Predator franchise, Prey, hits streaming Aug. 5 on Hulu as a Hulu Original. Coming in at a tight 99 minutes, is Prey a solid continuation of the franchise, or does this dog not hunt? Find out in the spoiler-free review below.

Set in the Northern Great Plains in 1719, Prey is the story of a band of Commanche who encounter a Predator on its species favorite vacation — travel to far away planets, find predator animals or, even better, warrior people, and hunt them for sport. The main character is Naru, a young woman who is trying to prove she can be as good a hunter as the young men in the band. Her older brother Taabe is the band’s best and most respected hunter, and it isn’t very long into the movie before the hunters encounter the Predator.

What follows is an almost linear story, with minor side encounters that all lead back to the big finale. There is no “extended soldiers on a secret mission” beginning as in the first Predator movie, nor an extended police investigation into murdered drug dealers as in Predator 2. The longest stretch of the movie before the Predator shows up is a long tracking shot of Naru walking through the band’s campsite, which does of great job of placing the character and setting.

And what a setting. All of the Commanche are played by Native American or First Nation actors. Among the producers of Prey is filmmaker Jhane Myers, a member of the Commanche nation, so experts were brought on to ensure accuracy in the Commanche language and the culture of early 18th century Commanche. Director Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) films them with all the reverence of Dances With Wolves but with much more grounded realism. And he takes great advantage of the scenery of the locations in Alberta, Canada. One of my personal benchmarks when watching a film like this is “how much do I want to hike and fish in these locations?” In Prey, the answer is “very much.”

Leading those Native actors as Naru is Amber Midthunder, who first came to my attention as one of the two Kerry Loudermilks in the amazing series Legion. While she was fantastic in that, her side of Kerry was a super strong and tough “get the job done” kind of character, and Midthunder was rarely required to act anything other than “resolute” or “angry” or “resolutely angry.” In Prey she runs the spectrum of emotions and does so believably. When Naru gets tough, she does so with a sense of earned resolve, and none of the nearly inhuman determination that Midthunder brought to Kerry.

A standout is Dakota Beavers as Taabe. In his very first acting role, he brings an attention-grabbing presence, whether being playful, friendly, proud or fierce. Apparently, Beavers is a member of the country band Sheridan Hill, made up mostly of the Beavers brothers, so it will be interesting to see if he continues to pursue acting. If so, he has a strong career ahead of him.

Also, a shoutout has to be given to 6’9″ Dane DiLiegro as the Predator. Obviously, all his acting is physical, but he performs it like an experienced stunt man, instead of the Massachusetts-born professional basketball player and Tuscany-trained chef that he is, according to his IMDb bio.

Credit needs to be given for, and a warning about, the CG wild animals in the movie. The story is about hunters of various species and ethnicities, so we see animal-on-animal predation, human-on-animal hunting and of course Predator-on-anything violence, from wild animals to human hunters and warriors. So, while the CG is amazingly realistic for most of the wild animals, if you don’t want to see quite a number of them getting brutally killed, Prey might not be for you.

I really only have two complaints about the movie, and they aren’t huge. First is that there as some jarring scene jumps that indicate some content was cut probably to get that short run time and make the movie move along pretty quickly. The other is how Naru develops an innovative way of using her weapon of choice, which seems to be foreshadowing how important it will be in the finale, and for the sake of no further spoilery talk, you can decide how effective that foreshadowing was when you see Prey.

I give Prey (20th Century Studios; R; 1hr, 39mins) a 7 out of 10.

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