Prey
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In 1987, Arnold Schwarzenegger battled an invader from another planet in Predator. But Arnold’s Dutch Schaefer wasn’t the first human to take on this otherworldly warrior. And in director Dan Trachtenberg’s Hulu-releasing prequel, Prey, a young woman finds herself battling a beast unlike anything she’s battled before.

Prey hunts a terrifying otherworldly beast with Naru (Amber Midthunder), a young Comanche woman who spends her days gathering plants for her healer mother, though she dreams of being a hunter and tracker like her brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers). When she finds some monstrous tracks in the forest, she believes that it’s something much larger—and deadlier—than a bear. And though her brother and his friends don’t think she’s up for any kind of hunt, she sets out to find this beast—and comes face to face with a warrior from another planet.

As Naru ventures into the woods to track this unknown monster, the story is about her—not the Predator. Sure, she often encounters this technologically advanced warrior. She watches as he battles both animal and human combatants. She knows how powerful this enemy is—how advanced his weapons. And the battles turn out to be action-packed and sometimes incredibly violent.

Still, the story of the Predator isn’t especially interesting; he simply shows up from some unknown place for some unknown reason and kills a bunch of people. What’s interesting, then, is the story of this young woman who’s constantly written off. No one thinks she can hunt; no one believes that she can be a warrior—yet she tracks this monster time and time again and manages to escape while others can’t. Amber Midthunder plays the character with the kind of strength, determination, and cunning that will make audiences root for her to defy everyone’s expectations and fight back against this alien adversary.

In fact, in the midst of Naru’s story, the Predator seems out of place. This young warrior may be taking on a beast that no one else can defeat in an attempt to prove herself to her tribe, but the fact that this threat is an invisible monster from another planet can be off-putting. It’s an often intense action film—but it sometimes feels like two very different films stuck together.

Prey is definitely a different kind of Predator film—a story of a native warrior-in-training vs. monster. But while the setting and the characters make for a striking film, it doesn’t necessarily feel like a Predator story.


Prey is available for streaming on Hulu starting on August 5, 2022.


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