Revisiting Prey

Movies are a lot of fun, and some of the most fun I've had with them is the occasional treat of seeing two radically different ingredients getting mixed to create something entirely new. Such is the case with Dan Trachtenberg's Prey, a radical and exciting experiment that mixes the high-concept science fiction of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Predator with a relatively primitive Colonial America. I watched the trailer for this movie an ungodly number of times before it was released, mainly because the concept intrigued my inner historian. I'll admit I didn't expect it to be very good, especially since the advertising dressed it up as all-too-familiar commentary on a culture war when, in fact, it was something entirely different. Prey proved me very wrong in more ways than one, and I've rarely been so happy to see a movie surpass my expectations of it.

Prey is the best movie in its franchise, and this is because of its willingness to rest all of its weight on only one character, in this case, the simply-written yet perfectly capable Naru. In contrast, Predator insisted on making six different characters with a shared personality fight over the spotlight. This surprise spin-off isn't a masterpiece, and the first time I watched it, I wanted it to be, only to be disappointed when it wasn't. And so, I partially missed what was right in front of me at the time, a very good exercise in suspenseful filmmaking with a heroine who's easy to root for simply because everyone tells her that she'll never amount to anything. This is a simple and familiar story told exceptionally well, one that's refreshingly free of most of the stereotypes found in both Predator and 2010's Predators.

Naru's story is both a familiar underdog story and a tale of a fish who would rather be out of water. In her case, she wants to hunt for her tribe of Native Americans, a job that traditionally goes to the men. I'll admit that Naru isn't the deepest main protagonist of all time, but that's relatively par for the course for a Predator movie, and Amber Midthunder's more-than-capable acting gets the job done. Thankfully, this movie doesn't make more of its relatively simple themes than necessary, smartly emphasizing suspense and viewer experience over its messages. And boy, is Prey ever so suspenseful.

This is a movie that understands that the threat of violence is often more effective than the actual thing, and it spends much of its first third just whispering threats in your ear. Something is out there. We know what it is, but watching a bunch of characters who don't go through fight-or-flight in front of the beautiful but very dangerous backdrop of the Great Plains is both serene and scary. Prey was a straight-to-streaming feature, and it doesn't entirely outrun the occasional visual corner-cutting of movies like it, but Trachtenberg's direction and some capable editing elevate what could have been a bad movie - or worse, a mediocre one - to a genuinely impressive level.

Being a movie with heavy horror elements, much of the suspense of Prey rested in the hands of the post-production team, who sculpted it into a patient, suspenseful beast prowling around and waiting to strike where we least expect it. So much of this movie is in service of whatever menace lurks around the corner, whatever horrible thing we can anticipate next. Its grasp of tension is firm by any metric, not just by the measure of straight-to-streaming. It is not so much the next big thing as it is both a return to everything that made the 1987 original work and an improvement on those elements. The editing team understood their assignment, and their startling minimalism lends Prey a quiet menace.

Now, as ambitious as this movie is with its setting, its narrative is a mix of the first Predator and a half-dozen other suspense and action films, more interested in replicating an old feeling than creating a new one. The most surprising thing about Prey was its trailer. It's a movie that's relatively free of stereotypes in some refreshing ways, but it's also more devoted to reminding us why we loved the movies that inspired it than it is to doing anything particularly relevant to the future, other than giving us hope that we'll one day get to see a Viking, a World War II soldier, or a Mongol warrior fight a predator. It's an overly familiar story told well, which may be an unfair complaint on my part. It's just that I knew how this movie would end before it even began, and you will too.

Nevertheless, its superb grasp of suspense, combined with an evident love for history, is a sight to behold that far outshines any predictability. Prey isn't trying to make more of itself than it already is; it's a movie you've seen before, told in a new and intriguing way. As I said, it is the best movie in the Predator franchise to date, and it takes the series back to its foundations, marginally improving on their construction. It is a refreshingly grounded thriller in a world that equates Infinity Stones and grand spectacle with imagination. And best of all, more than anything else, it's fun.

Imagine you're going out to eat at a restaurant. Most everyone has eaten the familiar hamburger at some point in their life, but Prey is that burger with an insane number of exotic toppings, the type you can't help but try simply because it's such a novelty. It's technically just a burger, yet you know that describing it as such would be a dishonest disservice. I've already been here to eat once before. I can see myself coming back for more in the future.

Prey - 8/10

Acts 10:9-16