Unlike some other genre-film heads, I’ve never believed it was impossible to make a good sequel to Predator. Arguments against that statement typically hinge on the force of personalities involved– indeed, none of the four films released since John McTiernan’s classic hit screens in 1987 have had a ragtag group of leads as solid as the combo of Schwarzenegger, Weathers, Ventura, Duke, and Black, among all. But the aspects of Predator that make it such a unique and interesting genre/franchise template and don’t wholly rely on charisma are easy enough to perform variations on, which is why it’s so bizarre how often they fail at recapturing that same magic. There are three key things to making a decent film in this franchise. First, one needs to keep it high-concept, which most do (aside from Shane Black’s The Predator, which I still find pretty entertaining despite myself). Second, you need an interesting setting. Predator 2 held the title of “best locale” for a long time, with its quasi-futuristic urban hellscape feeling like it was ripped straight out of a Marvel comic from 1990, complete with holographic cover, and Predators at least tried something interesting even if it wasn’t memorable. Third, and perhaps most importantly, it needs to be its own, unique film and forge its path without relying on easy callbacks to the original (subversion, however, is a whole other matter). The franchise possibilities only really emerge with Predator 2, which hinted at a grander story of the alien hunters’ contact with humanity, much less the Xenomorphs. It’s telling that what we – and the studio – focused on was the presence of a single Alien skull amidst that wall of trophies than the gun that was handed to Danny Glover from its place on the mantle, though the wall served to inspire generations of nerds to come up with that material in countless short stories and comic books. Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey aims to rectify that error and does so wonderfully.
That first marker is sated within the opening minutes of the film: We’re introduced to Naru (Amber Midhunter, who is fantastic), a young Comanche woman, living with her tribe in the Great Plains. It’s 1719, and the (gorgeous) landscape is slowly changing: French trappers are skinning buffalo and burning down sections of forest, but life remains calm and stable for the hunter-gatherers – she spends her days foraging and mending, prepping supplies and goods for those around her. But what she’d like to do is hunt, and she’s talented with her Tomahawk, being a practical dead-eye when it comes to target practice in the trees. Her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) is an elite warrior among the group, and though he respects and loves his sister, he doesn’t think she’s cut out for the business of killing. As such, she’s searching for a way to prove herself and nearly comes across it when she (and her faithful dog) track a whitetail in the woods. But a sonic boom spooks the creature, and she’s unable to snag it, her dog being led into a bear trap left by those trappers in the woods. Another noise – some sort of loud explosion – causes her to look up and see what she thinks is a Thunderbird, a sign from the cosmos that things are going to change for her soon. And they are, but not in the way she thinks: That Thunderbird is an alien vessel, dropping off a Predator so that he can prove himself to his elders (this is implied, of course). He’s been outfitted with a low-fi variation on the gear that we’d become familiar with as a culture in ’87: His mask is a retrofitted skull, claimed from some unknown beast, instead of a plasma burst coming after those three-dots line up on one’s forehead, there are laser-guided bolts, and there’s no nuke on his arm, as he’s got a series of smaller percussive bombs.
One shouldn’t mistake his arsenal for a lack of lethality – after all, the primary tools of combat on the frontier were knives, bows, axes, spears, and flintlock guns – and Trachtenberg uses the possibilities given to him by his setting in really smart ways. While we’re following the developing action in the tribe (they’re menaced by a lion, which is a nice fake-out, with Naru being the only person in the party to notice the presence of the alien), the Predator is asserting himself as the top dog in the natural landscape, murdering his way through the alpha-predator hierarchy. It’s a snake, gutted and skinned, that clues Naru into the fact that something weird is happening, but soon he’s moved on to wolves and, eventually, a bear, which, after the creature bathes in its blood, she finally realizes the scale of what she’s up against. Thus, Naru’s attempts to prove herself take on a much more significant urgency, as she recognizes this as a legitimate danger to her people. And through her wits and skill, she spends much of the film honing the skills and the knowledge needed to take down the creature before it can do real damage. Trachtenberg doesn’t shy away from the historical-political aspects of his setting: the Predator is shown in direct contrast to the French – a trophy-hunting assassin seeking to prove himself versus the merciless slaughter of those other aliens looking to accumulate capital from nature’s bounty, both leaving stripped corpses in their wake. And, boy, is it satisfying to watch these trappers get what’s coming to them, their tech and numbers rendered useless against a foe that can tear their limbs apart in a burnt-out and clear-cut forest, ash raining down on the combatants. But even more satisfying is the way that Naru transitions from prey to predator through her character arc, its narrative impact assisted by how seemingly every throwaway moment or detail pays off. Everything from the presence of an orange flower, a quicksand-like pool of mud, and a cool-ass electro-scalpel that looks like a human spine provides a reward for the viewer and keeps us engaged and paying attention, even at home.
That, perhaps, is the great tragedy of Prey, being shunted off to Hulu by a company that isn’t particularly interested in theatrically releasing films that aren’t guaranteed to reap immediate box office rewards or some manner of awards success later on (and, of course, it’s the film with a genuinely under-represented cast and a woman in the lead role that gets discarded). On the other hand, it is nice to have a Comanche-language dub on hand for one’s viewing pleasure instead of having to wait for a Blu-Ray release, but I can’t help but think of how this would have absolutely killed at a packed screening. Prey is big (at least in scope and would have looked lovely on a larger screen), brutal and badass, full of fun gory kills and ample amounts of suspense, but it’s also incredibly clever, and I would love to feel that “Oh, shit” recognition that emanates from a crowd when it realizes what exactly a film is doing. It’s the kind of franchise-furthering sequel that actively plays on your memories of the prior films without just defaulting to the hit parade, opting for more complex pleasures than a “Long Tall Sally” needle drop. This is a much more rewarding and deeper form of tribute, and when it’s paired with a world-expanding perspective and compelling setting, you get something foreign in our IP wasteland: Novelty. That’s something that the Predator series hasn’t seen since the ’90s, and Trachtenberg’s stellar work here has made it, once again, interesting and relevant.