After the brilliant and suspenseful Prey (2022), director Dan Trachtenberg continues his incredible reinvention of the Predator series with this animated feature.
Predator: Killer of Killers launched in June 2025 and is every bit as great as Prey, but for different reasons. With its memorable animated style and focus on lots of chaos, it’s a stylish and very violent time of it.
The Stylised Mayhem of Predator: Killer of Killers
Since the original Predator in 1987, the series has been all over the place. Many sequels have been terrible or quite good. But as far as we were concerned, this series was better off being left to rest.
Instead, what Dan Trachtenberg has done is quite astonishing. He’s totally revitalised the franchise with these two films, with a third (Badlands) set for launch in November 2025.
Based on Predator: Killer of Killers, that third outing will be a must watch. With the big difference to Prey here being violence. It’s basically the Aliens to Ridley Scott’s Alien, with Prey focussing on emotional character development and suspense to great effect.
Killer of Killers is stylised mayhem at its best, with frequently amazing artistic flourishes amongst the gore and mayhem. There are four chapters:
- The Shield
- The Sword
- The Bullet
- The Battle
These are set across different time periods, with the first in year 841 Scandinavia with Viking warrior Ursa (voiced in fantastic fashion by Lindsay LaVanchy) going on an insane rampage.
As the Predator lore goes, humans are doing there thing on Earth. But then the giant monster thing arrives and it all becomes a hellish pitched battle for survival.
And that’s what we get across the three chapters.
The seconds, Sword, is set in 1609 Japan, roughly the same time period as the brilliant series Shōgun (2024). This bit reminds us of that show, cool as all heck and lots of samurai stuff.
Chapter three is set in 1942 with WWII in full flow, with a precocious young US Navy pilot. After the Predators invade, he’s left in a pitched battle to wipe them out.
All of which then leads to the film’s violent finale, with the three survivors of each time period brought to the Predator’s home planet. There they have to participate in one final battle in an arena against a massive Grendel King monster.
Yeah, so it’s a violent film. But it’s spectacular, intense, relentless, and very cool.
There’s another great score, but with a different composer to last time (see Sarah Schachner’s brilliant Prey soundtrack), this time completed by Benjamin Wallfisch. For this one, relied on the series’ famous theme music a bit more alongside some of his new flourishes.
A great, atmospheric film then and a tribute to the new life director Trachtenberg has breathed into this series. After the 1987 original, it’s all over the place in terms of quality.
Now there’s a consistent level of excellence with new ideas, new styles, and it all works a treat. If you want mayhem, Killer of Killers is the one to watch. But if you’re after suspense and emotional impact, Prey is your one.
The Production of Killer of Killers
The film had a $50 million budget. Annoying, as with Prey before it, there was no official cinematic release. Which is stupid, as this thing would look amazing on the big screen.
Trachtenberg has a trilogy on the go, with the closer (Badlands) set to launch in November 2025. Finally, that’s getting a cinematic release and that’s fully deserved. Perhaps one reason why is the lack of A list actor talent in the projects. There weren’t any major star names in the cast for the first two films, although ’80s cinema icon Michael Biehn has a brief role as a fighter pilot in the third act.
Amber Midthunder took the lead role in Prey, but she was an unknown at the time. She has a small cartoon likeness cameo at the end of Killer of Killers, but as far as we’re aware she’s not in Badlands and her turn in the series was possibly a one-off.
Away from that and focussing on the amazing animation style, it was completed using the iconic Unreal Engine and took inspiration from Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s legendary Akira (1988). It’s all very impressive and, set across four chapters as it is, you get a new look and feel across the film.
It only launched on Disney+/Hulu, so that’s where you can watch it. The services don’t release viewing figures, so we don’t know how the film has performed. But! It did receive positive critical feedback and we’d like to think it’ll be recognised as one of the best films of 2025.
