Interstellar Hunters Collide in Hulu's 'Prey'

By Nate Parker | Film | May 16, 2022 |

By Nate Parker | Film | May 16, 2022 |

Feast your eyes on the ultimate teaser:

40 dialogue-free seconds deliver all the information we could need, with a perfect villain reveal and no spoilers. If you need more, here’s the synopsis:

Set in the Comanche Nation 300 years ago, “Prey” is the story of a young woman, Naru, a fierce and highly skilled warrior. She has been raised in the shadow of some of the most legendary hunters who roam the Great Plains, so when danger threatens her camp, she sets out to protect her people. The prey she stalks, and ultimately confronts, turns out to be a highly evolved alien predator with a technically advanced arsenal, resulting in a vicious and terrifying showdown between the two adversaries.

This is what a Predator story should be; stripped to the bone and terrifying. The rest of the series — excluding the original, of course — felt the need to add characters, an overcomplicated plot, and backstory the audience doesn’t need. This looks more like what John McTiernan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Carl Weathers promised us 35 years ago; an implacable hunter stalking terrified, woefully outgunned humans through an isolated wilderness.

Director Dan Trachtenberg is best known for 10 Cloverfield Lane, a terrifying mashup of small-scale insanity and global alien invasion that featured a truly unhinged John Goodman. But he also directed the series premiere of The Boys and did a spectacular job there as well. Writer Patrick Aison is less well-known, but has written and produced episodes of Wayward Pines, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, and Treadstone. The cast, almost entirely Indigenous, includes highly-talented Amber Midthunder as Naru. She was in Liam Neeson’s The Ice Road, though this crowd is more likely to know her as Kerry Loudermilk, one of Legion’s main characters.

Prey premieres August 5 on Hulu. I will avoid every trailer from here on because I couldn’t possibly be more invested in this feature than I am already. Also, 35 years since the Predator series began?! F*ck I’m old.