We frequently fall into the trap of believing that expanding a franchise is the only way to advance. What was successful for one franchise might not be successful for another. But Dan Trachtenberg steps in and demonstrates the process for us at this point.
Prey, his most recent picture, is the fifth in the Predator movie series, yet it successfully moves the franchise forward by actually going way back in time. What we have here is a film that not only distinguishes out from its predecessors but also compares favorably to the John McTiernan original— if anything, it is cleverly even better! Prey has a strong screenplay by Patrick Aison and is clear about what it wants to be.
Make sure you watch the entire video because we will explain the new film in great depth and also discuss the Feral Predator. You would better get set!
Ready To Hunt Something That’s Hunting You? – Prey (2022) Movie Explained
“A long time ago, it is said, a monster came here,” a young Comanche warrior cries out against a background of complete darkness. We get to enjoy a panoramic view of the wild Northern Great Plains and its huge, open spaces. The year is 1719, and the camera moves to a tribal community where it focuses on the young warrior Naru and gives us a glimpse into her everyday activities.
It is very obvious that Naru wants to hunt like the tribe’s men, and judging by the accuracy of her axe throws, she is probably good at it. Naru is shown trying to hunt a white-tailed deer while being accompanied by her devoted mutt when she notices this scorching bolt of fire in the sky. Believing it to be a sign and addressing it as the Thunderbird, Naru tells her older, over-protective yet competitive brother Taabe about how she has been practicing and that she is ready for her kühtaamia or in simple words, her big hunt.
Of course, Taabe isn’t convinced and with Naru not paying attention to his hunting story, he shoots a red-tailed hawk that her sister was aiming at. A conversation between Naru and her mother later also exhibits the general mindset of the Comanche tribe – the roles are pre-defined and when it comes to hunting, it is a man’s job. With Naru’s mother asking her to get some orange totsiyaa, she goes into the wood to get some.
It’s also around the same time when we first get to see the invisible silhouette of the Predator having descended from the scout ship. With the spacecraft disappearing into the sky, the intentions of the Predator becomes pretty clear as the creature is seen headed towards the very woods.
Meanwhile, Naru on her way back learns about one of Taabe’s hunter friends getting attacked by a mountain lion and decides to follow her brother and his friends. Taabe’s friends are nothing but bullies and Naru’s struggle to fit in is real. Taabe tells Naru to tag along with them because of her tracking skills and medicinal knowledge. As for the Predator, he has already started doing what he is best at beginning with a snake. With the group finding a wounded Puhi alive, they make a bed for him out of wood to get him back to the village.
Naru is pretty sure there’s more to the story; she starts believing that there is something out there that scared the mountain lion away from its den. With Taabe deciding to stay back and hunt the mountain lion, the rest of the group start moving back to the camp. But after seeing a skinned and gutted snake on the way along with some tracks that definitely don’t belong to a bear, Naru decides to go back to her brother to warn him. But even with her filling in Taabe, the latter gets more excited about hunting the lion.
Taking her sister’s approach, Taabe decides to bait the animal first and then lead it to her sister, giving her the opportunity for her first big hunt. But when the time comes, the mountain lion proves itself to be way more ferocious than what Naru had expected and she survives making a narrow escape.
The tribal people are seen celebrating Taabe’s big hunt and he is made the new War Chief much to the shock of Naru. But with her trying to convince Taabe that there is something else out in the woods and that they need to go far beyond the ridgeline to hunt it, Taabe directly indicates that she is not meant to be a hunter. Naru takes that as a challenge and decides to find things out by herself. Her logic’s pretty simple – if they don’t see, then show them.
Speaking of the Predator, the apex hunter is seen moving his way up the animal chain pretty fast. What started out with a snake has become a wolf in the process and it is quite evident that the creature is not even the slightest bit intrigued by preys that are easy. Well, if we are being honest, the deadlier the kill, the greater the glory.
Anyway, coming back to the wolf as the prey, the Predator is initially seen weighing his option using his thermal imaging ability. After he is done gauging, he wastes no time in attacking his prey using his signature double wristblades and eventually pulls out the wolf’s spine along with the head.
Naru, on the other hand, is seen enhancing her weapons and prepping herself up. She is even successful in hunting down the rabbit that she was earlier unable to. After making a meal out of her hunt, she sets out to find whatever left those tracks. The next scene finally shows us the Predator spraying liquid nitrogen on the wolf head to dissolve the flesh. While we don’t get a clear view of the Predator yet, we can easily make out his long wiry hair-like dreadlocks, his wrist bracers, the outline of the mandibles and let’s not forget those sharpened claws.
He has barely attached the skull to his belt when he gets to hear Naru’s mutt barking. Alarmed, he activates his cloaking ability. As for Naru, she reaches a clearing and is shocked to find a horde of dead, skinned buffaloes lying. Paying her respects, she continues to look. By now, the Predator is already seen leaping from one tree to the other following the sound of the barking and eventually Naru’s footsteps.
Then comes the scene that we have all been waiting for – the first encounter. With Naru and her hound getting chased and attacked by a wild, ruthless bear, the Predator is seen to intervene and engage in an intense fight. While initially, it did look like the bear was winning, the Predator showed his true power giving the bear a punch of a lifetime, lifting the animal up in the air and gutting it in the bloodiest fashion possible. We’d like to stress on the overflow of the blood here all over the Predator’s body, thereby giving him an all-red look. Of course, Naru is horrified to see this and she escapes from there.
With Naru bumping on the other Comanche hunters on her way back to the camp, she tells them about what she saw only to have them ridicule her stating that she saw a monster from a children’s story. A fight breaks out between Naru and the group and they incapacitate the former. As the group decides to rest for some time, Naru hears the snarls of the Predator. The sound tends to grow louder catching the attention of the rest of the group and they arm themselves with their crossbows.
With a bunch of possums heading towards their direction, one of the members of the group shoots at one of them. As he goes to inspect the dead animal, The Predator aims his laser-guided spear gun at him and fatally impales him. Thanks to the Predator’s invisibility cloak, none of the other group members can figure out his location. With the Feral Predator taking out the spears from the dead body, the group starts shooting arrows towards that direction.
This discloses the Predator’s location and it’s only after he gets shot by the arrows that we get a proper look at his obtuse head, the helmet, his extended mouth and those hard to miss insect-like mandibles. He lets out a roar, one that’s bound to scare the living daylights out of you.
It goes without saying that he easily manages to crush the rest of the group members and even goes to the extent of chopping off the limbs of one of them using the latter’s very own spear before decapitating him of course! There comes a moment when the Predator nearly catches Naru when she inadvertently steps on a foothold trap but with the last minute intervention of the French fur trappers, it saves her from being his prey.
Naru is taken as a hostage by the hunters and kept inside a cage. Of course, it does not take her much time to realize that the skinned buffaloes that she saw earlier were the monstrous deeds of the hunters and not the Predator. The French hunters order their translator to strike up a conversation with Naru. The translator asks her what she saw and that she should be helping her. He tells her that the creature is a hunter, one that’s on the lookout for the strongest beast.
With Naru refusing to answer him, the lead hunter opens up another cage disclosing Taabe and tortures him in front of her. Next, the duo are tied up as bait against a tree and the hunters arm themselves from every direction. Taabe finally realizes what his sister has chosen for her first hunt. Coming back to the Predator, he has obviously moved his attention towards the French fur trappers now and it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that he stealthily slaughters all of them, well most of them.
Not only does he display an advanced arsenal, he viciously kills them giving the siblings just enough time enough to escape from there. Naru goes back to the hunter’s camp to rescue her dog and encounters the fatally injured translator. As barter to a medical treatment by Naru, the translator shows her how to use his flintlock pistol. Upon giving the translator some orange totsiyaa and witnessing the Predator not being able to see him lying on the ground till he lets out a cry, Naru finally realizes the true benefits of the herb and decides to use it as her advantage.
Taabe arrives on horseback and is able to incapacitate the Predator for a brief period. With Taabe hitting the Predator hard enough to have his helmet fall on the ground, we get a full frontal vision of the Predator for the first time. Naru also realizes that the helmet happens to be the Predator’s projectile weapon and decides to use it against him.
However, the Predator manages to lay his hands on the helmet and after a fleeting but intense fight with Taabe, he activates the invisibility cloak. Using his ability against the duo, he sneaks up on Taabe and brutally kills him right before Naru’s eyes. Seeing her brother getting slaughtered by the Predator is too much for Naru and she runs away from there before the Predator can pursue her.
Later, when she finds the French lead hunter alive and drinking water from the nearby river, she decides to take her vengeance on the beings responsible for the death of her brother. She knocks him, severs one of his legs and even gives him an unloaded gun.
Next, she eats the orange totsiyaa and waits for the creature to attack the hunter. She waits for the Predator to arrive there and decapitate the hunter after which she uses the flintlock pistol to knock off the former’s helmet and runs away with it. For the ultimate face-off, Naru lures the Predator near the mud pit that she had earlier fallen into. Using every bit of knowledge that she has gathered about the Predator so far, she uses all of it against him tricking him into the very traps that she has deliberately laid for him severely wounding him in the process.
She executes the final step of her plan when she effectively makes him fall in the mud pit and uses his own helmet, his very own projectile weapon against him. With the Predator finally dead, Naru lets out her first war cry. She is seen heading back to her village with the severed head of the Predator and throws it in front of the tribal chieftain. She also hands over the flintlock pistol, tells the tribe about the French fur trappers and advises to move to easier protected ground. The movie ends with the tribal people celebrating Naru as the new war Chief.
Feral Predator Explored
He is leaner, he is meaner and he is nastier than before. Always on the lookout for a worthy adversary, the Feral Predator will go to every extent to prove himself as the ultimate winner. What we are looking at is an apex hunter, one that is pretty tall and has a blend of black and brown armored skin. The only amount of clothing that he is seen to don is a loincloth and add to that a belt.
His fingers are replaced with sharpened claws, he has a helmet on his head. If you ask us, the obtuse head looks more like a skull. He’s got dreadlocks for hair and an extended mouth that has four insect like mandibles emerging out of it. The predator on display happens to be a beast that has landed on Earth for the very first time and is reported to have come from a different part of Yautja Prime, one that happens to be the home planet of the species.
Now comes the most interesting part – his advanced arsenal, each of which deserves a mention. We will begin with his signature armament, his double wristblades. Please note that the beast is absolutely feral with his wristblades. It can slit through anything for that matter.
Next, we have the laser-guided speargun, that fires these fast moving razor sharp metal spears and once a victim is set as a target, he cannot escape his fate from it. This brings us to the Netgun, which is capable of firing a wire net at such speed and force that once it hits the prey, the wire mesh will wrap itself around the target and tighten it to the point of killing the target.
The Predator is seen making use of this weapon while battling against the French fur trappers. Now, let’s talk about his bio-helmet which is nothing but a projectile weapon allowing him abilities like thermal imaging, multiple vision modes, a red targeting laser as well as the invisibility cloak option. His wrist bracer also needs a mention because it features a horde of advanced settings giving him an edge when it comes to his adversary. He is pretty good with his chain blades too; they are sharp enough to break a bear trap.
Then we have the smart disc weapons that are capable of slashing through anything and creating a complete bloodbath. Speaking of his spear, the Predator can separate the weapon into a mace or a machete, depending on his choice. Last but not the least, we cannot miss out on his retractable metal shield which looks a bit rudimentary if you ask us but trust us when we say, it is the most effective one.
From leaping on trees one to the other, covering great distances to showcasing inhuman speed, strength and stamina, he is powerful in every way one can imagine. But he bleeds too and we all know in the shade of neon green.
With this, we have come to the end of our video here. Do hit us with your thoughts in the comments section and let us know after you have seen the movie. Also, stay tuned with us for more interesting content on Predator!