Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Dane DiLiegro, Stormee Kipp, Michelle Thrush, Julian Black Antelope, Stefany Mathais, Bennett Taylor, Mike Paterson, Nelson Leis, Tymon Carter, Skye Pelletier, Harlan Blayne Kytwayhat, Corvin Mack, Samuel Marty, Ginger Cattleman, Seanna Eagletail, Samiyah Crowfoot, Cody Big Tobacco, Troy Mundle, Curtis Pilon-Vinish, Stephanie Legault, Stephen Schroeder, Eric Beaudoin.
When you least expect it, the hunt comes for you.
In a film rife with symbolism and representation, Prey is the unexpected hit, the story that many didn’t know was coming, and the one that adds a truly epic back story to a franchise that deserves to be thought of as more than just a 1980s action vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger, that justifies, and is worthy of closer inspection, of being considered a dramatic allusion to how humanity faces down its worst nightmares by having the courage to slay its own demons.
For that is what the Predator is, like the self-titled Alien, it is our most insistent of nightmares made flesh, the demonic revelation that in the case of the Predator, we are not only food, but we, as a species, are sport, we are game, and as we have mistreated others, so we find ourselves hunted down as a prize.
Prey takes the story of the alien hunter’s species back to an earlier encounter, long before Major Alan ‘Dutch’ Schaefer’ and Lieutenant Mike Hannigan almost ceremonial combat with the creature in the first two instalments of the long running franchise – this is a time of damnation that faced the original tribes of the North Americas, from Blackfoot to Iroquois, the indigenous people that once were the symbol of this brave new world, were caught and treated with disrespect by the Europeans who ventured to the continent, and Prey frames the period of the early 1700s with fierce drive and commitment.
Written by Patrick Aison and directed by Dan Trachtenberg, the narrative focuses on Naru, played with stunning insight by Amber Midthunder, and her brothers as they hunt for food deep in the forests that surround their camp, but who soon become the hunted as the predator takes its first steps on the lands soon to be conquered by European settlers.
The symbolism of the film is passionately portrayed, the vision of the nightmare in all its primal fury is as disturbing as when first audiences were granted the reveal during the initial outing, and thankfully, the tale relies not on one liners or memorable catch phrases, but is instead a mature, adult, responsible movie that sends shivers down the spine and gives the mind an image of how humanity is itself just a plaything for death.
Prey is what Predator could have been, and whilst we cannot take away from the 1980s original, Prey can add, and Prey does so to the point where upon reflection it is arguably the franchise’s finest hour to date.
An outstanding presence in the horror/action genre, up there with the first Alien film in terms of meaning and subtly, a glorious feast that you cannot take your eyes off.
Ian D. Hall