Prey

dir: Dan Trachtenberg

2022

This is the best Predator-related film since the original Predator, and it’s not even a close contest. Every other instalment since that Arnie-starring vehicle has been different shades and levels of awful or unnecessary. The most recent was so terrible I vowed never to see anything Predator related ever again.

Well, I am a man of my word, so this flick being called Prey exempted me from my promise.

It is an excruciatingly simple story: Predator alien comes to Earth, hunts around for a while killing various creatures, works its way up to killing humans, and then only too late realises it has fucked around with the wrong person.

And now it’s time to find out just how badly.

The twist, if such a thing can be referred to as a twist, is that instead of setting the flick in the present, as in our present hellscape of coronaviruses, monkeypoxes and 100 year floods every other week, it’s set in the 1700s in the Great Plains area of what is now called the States.

Wherever it actually is set, wherever the tribal lands of the Comanche are, I have no doubt this was filmed in Canada. You can tell it’s Canada from a mile away. There’s a certain… Canadianness to everything, especially the natural scenery, but also in the way the Predator politely asks people if it’s okay if he yanks out their spines.

All our main characters are played by First Nations people, and their antagonists, when it’s not mountain lions, bears or aliens trying to kill them, are French fur trappers. Makes for a somewhat unique set up. Clear lines drawn between the good and the evil.

The Predator of this movie just does what predators do: comes here, goes invisible, kills a bunch of people and animals, takes trophies, and moves on. Sometimes he rips spines out, sometimes he claims skulls, whatever he feels like in the moment. But our main character Naru (Amber Midthunder) isn’t in it for the trophies, the participant ribbons or the gold star: she is trying to prove to her tribe (really, to her brother) that she too can hunt like the men of the tribe do, and, she’s trying to protect the tribe from a predator unlike any other.

Is it a girl power narrative? Sure it is. And that’s great. At no stage, even when she can clearly see what carnage this mostly invisible creature has wrought does anyone a) agree that she’d make an okay hunter or b) that there’s some invisible alien dude out there butchering animals and people.

Only when it’s too late. Only when they’re seconds from death do they think “I regret belittling Naru. I regret that I didn’t believe her sooner, I have no doubt, since she’s the star of the film, that she will be able to hold her own (and everyone elses) against the Predator.”

Beyond physical prowess she has the tracking skills to pay the bills that let her know that what’s around, even if it ain’t visible, is like nothing else, and that it hunts in particular ways.

In lots of films with predominately white casts the native American / First Nations character has tracking abilities so acute that the colonisers are in contemptuous awe of them and their almost supernatural senses. In a flick where all the characters around her are members of her tribe, her skills have to be extra impressive to impress the unimpressible. And they are, which is handy.

To those (usually sweaty, smelly chaps who also happen to be insecure, what a coincidence) who complain about the lead of an action film being covered in girl germs – well, what point is there arguing with such fuckwits? Are they still complaining about waitress Sarah Connor destroying a Terminator all those years ago? If not why not?

Naru is never less than a total badass all throughout the film, even when she’s failing badly. At least she tries. She is more at risk from jerk members of her own tribe than she is from the beast itself, and she believes in herself when no-one else does.

She does at least have two allies. Her loyal (and practically immortal dog) Sarii, and her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), pretty much the hero of the tribe, who never has any problem supporting his sister, and never puts her down. He does worry about her in the sense that he knows how hard she’s willing to go in order to prove herself, and that she could end up harming herself in achieving her goals. But he also acknowledges that beyond her bravery, her tracking skills are phenomenal, and her sense of the environment and the way to use tactics make her a lethal hunter, even if she hasn’t sealed the deal yet.

The flick doesn’t give us instant gratification, but it does serve up acres of tension and a landscape that doesn’t seem like it would be that friendly (to us city folk) even if there weren’t rampaging aliens killing everyone and ripping their spines out.

If you were feeling less than charitable you could point out that despite the protagonists, and the “novelty” of their ethnicity and such, the rest pretty much plays out in a conventional, almost reassuring manner. But I would argue that the way it plays out is perfect for the setting and the protagonists, and it exactly what the story needs.

When Sarii’s tail gets caught in an iron trap, it’s the first hint that there is someone else in this environment other than the Comanche, the critters that want to kill them, and the alien hunter. There are also French fur trappers. I mean, the Predator kills for pleasure, for the glory of the hunt, but these French bastards, so easy to hate, they kill herds of bison and leave their carcasses to rot, taking only part of the their pelts.

Boo I say, I boo what you’re doing. If you’re thinking these French jerks are here in order to say a) some people are worse than brutal alien hunters and b) to give the audience some despicable humans for the Predator to kill that we can “enjoy”, well, you’d be absolutely right.

And boy howdy do they get their comeuppance. These French jerks at one point tie up Naru and her brother as live bait for the Predator, because they’re none too bright, and don’t realise the hunter’s hunter doesn’t kill tied up prey. This guy kills massive bears with his bare hands!

What it comes down to, eventually, even after one of the trappers teaches her how to use a flintlock pistol, it comes down to her weapons, her favourite being her axe, which she’s tricked out with a cord in order to make flinging it around easier and more deadly, and the hunter’s ways she’s learned from her brother, her knowledge of plants from her mother, and her knowledge of the terrain. Maybe with all of these she stands a fighting chance against an otherworldly opponent with high tech weapons and the ability to turn invisible.

She will make a believer out of you. Amber Midthunder is never less than magnificent as this lethal First Nations hunter, and I loved her relationship with her brother, who’s a total badass himself, and her adorable dog. Every time I thought something bad was going to happen to the dog, my heart leapt up into my mouth the way it never did with any humans. And, just to totally spoil, the dog is fine at the end of the movie.

The dog is fine! Better than fine. No dogs were hurt in the making of this movie, but a lot of alien blood definitely gets spilled.

Prey. A solidly enjoyable film

8 times you’d think these aliens would have learned their mistake way back then out of 10

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“You bled my brother. So now you bleed. 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.” - Prey