After hearing great things about Prey (2022), directed by Dan Trachtenberg, we finally caught up with it. Awesome, is what we thought! Arguably the best entry in the Predator franchise… maybe even better than the original.

Set on the Great Plains of America in 1719, the focus on a native American tribe is merged magnificently with sci-fi elements. Add in a stunning soundtrack and this is a genuinely quite profound time of it, merged with some of the most inventive and explosive bouts of gore we’ve ever seen.

A Journey of Chaos and Discovery in Prey

Prey follows the life of young Comanche Native American healer Naru (Amber Midthunder in her breakout role), overseen by her older brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers). Naru wants to become a hunter with the rest of her tribe and believes she sees a thunderbird sign (a mythological creature in Native American lore) in the sky.

Convinced her time for kühtaamia (a rites of passage) is now, she asks her brother for permission to join the lead hunter group. He informs her she needs to complete a trial before making that step.

These early minutes of the film show that director Trachtenberg isn’t messing around. Other than the original Predator in 1987, most of the sequels have been okay, mediocre, or dreadful. Prey is very different, treating the franchise with respect and adding some real gravitas to proceedings with the spectacular location and beautiful score.

For us, that bit of music from the 2:50 mark confirmed we were in for a great time of it.

It instantly sets the mood for what’s ahead, with the director taking the Predator concept seriously (and we’ve put together a feature on Sarah Schachner’s unique Prey score).

The thunderbird sign Naru believed she saw is a Predator (performed by Dane DiLiegro), which has landed on Earth to begin hunting prey.

What could be a dodgy B movie type setup in the wrong hands is instead handled very well indeed, with excellent performances, a strong script, and some fantastically gory set pieces playing out in quick succession. But, crucially, Naru is given the first 30 minutes of the film to herself so viewers begin to believe in her journey.

It’s a great narrative arc and that ensures we’re fully engaged with her efforts by the time the Predator arrives. By crap bags, though, does that maniac arrive in style.

Some of the battle sequences, including an extended scene when the Predator obliterates a squad of French voyageurs, is full on brutal and spectacular. Warning below as there’s quite a bit of violence in this clip.

Where Prey excels is in managing these expected bouts of extreme violence alongside its emotional storyline.

Again, the characterisation drives the plot. Naru is on a personal journey, realising there’s a powerful entity beyond her scope of understanding, but one she most destroy to become the War Chief of her tribe. To do that, she uses her smarts to overcome the odds.

Now, we absolutely love the original Predator and think it’s a sci-fi classic. However, we do think Prey is better. For us, this is the new peak of the series and it marks an intelligent, fun, dramatic, even profound journey based on the obvious extreme care and attention that went into crafting it.

The Production of Prey

Despite its $65 million budget, Prey didn’t receive a theatrical release. It launched straight to Disney+ and Hulu. This is a real shame as it’s a spectacle that demands to be seen on the big screen. Hopefully, at some point in the future it’ll get a proper cinematic release. Films this good deserve it!

Amber Midthunder deserves a lot of credit for her performance. Her first movie roles date back to 2001 (when she was four) and since Prey she’s had a minor role in the excellent Nic Cage drama Dream Scenario.

She returned to the 2025 sequel Predator: Killer of Killers, reprising her role as Naru. That launched in June 2025 in the US to excellent reviews. We’ll catch up with it soon, it’s only available on Disney+ (again, no cinematic release…).

We should note, she has a pet dog in the film called Sarii who is her constant companion. This dog (real name Coco) is period-accurate to 1719, as the Carolina Dog breed followed humans across the Bering Strait some 4,500 years ago. Sarii is intended as a direct descendant of those dogs, highlighting the level of detail director Trachtenberg went to here.

As for Prey, shooting began in June 2021 in Calgary, Alberta of Canada. Most of the shoot took place Stoney Nakoda First Nation outside of Calgary city. The cast had four weeks of training to familiarise themselves with the Native American way of life, including the use of weapons.

With the story’s focus on Comanche culture, consideration was given into having the cast speak in the Comanche language. It was shot in the end, obviously, but a full Comanche dub was provided by the cast at a later date. Trachtenberg said:

“Both languages are spoken, but when you hear English, it’s as if it’s Comanche. But what Jhane is speaking to is on Hulu, there will be a Comanche dub of the movie, so you can watch the entire movie in Comanche with the original actors returning to perform their roles.”

This is a notable thing in some films and hails back to The Hunt for Red October in 1990. In that film, Sean Connery and various other actors speak Russian (with subtitles) before suddenly transitioning into English. The transition works very badly indeed and has been a continuous thing for films and whatnot to get right.

It can be a bit weird. When an actor is supposed to be, say, French but then they speak in English… but with a French English speaking voice. The Prey approach is the most novel way we’ve seen of addressing this, all in keeping with a clever and progressive film.