Prey is an intense action movie that pits a Comache girl against the Predator, the Predator needs to call for some back up! The film is directed by Dan Trachetenberg who directed the series premiere, “The Name of the Game” (2019) of The Boys. He is also known for directing 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016). Trachtenberg provides the film’s story along with Patrick Aison who wrote the “The Bentley Lament” (2019) episode of Treadstone. Aison also wrote the screenplay. This prequel works as a good introduction to the Predator so you are not required to see the previous movies except to get hints of call backs. Part of the movie is in Comache (there is a Comache dub also on Hulu). The opening narration translates that “A long time ago, it is said, a monster came here.” We see a river flowing between that leads to forested hills and mountains under the rising sun. The cinematography is by Jeff Cutter, who also worked on 10 Cloverfield Lane.
The winds sigh in the quiet, pastoral scene and then we get the girl, Naru (Amber Midthunder), asleep with her black face paint, a stripe under her eyes. Midthunder is in the sci fi series, Roswell, New Mexico. She is kicked awake. Next to her is Sarii, her dog, an adopted dog for the movie named Coco. Naru leaves her kahni, home, with her medicine bag. The rest of her tribe is busy with chores. She cuts a tuber from the forest floor. Sarii is keeping herself interested. Naru looks up and sees a tree. There are thumps of a tomahawk until we finally see one strike a tree. She retrieves her tomahawk and tests her accuracy again until it finally strikes the same mark. Naru sees deer tracks. She reaches a fallen tree with Sarii at her side. There is a white tail deer grazing nearby. Naru whispers commands to Sarii and then raises up with her tomahawk.
She hears thunder and then the deer bolts with Sarii chasing after it. Naru races parallel to the deer and Sarii’s barking, but the deer escapes. There is a clank and whimpering by Sarii! Her tail is caught in a small, metal trap. Naru frees him and then uses medicine on her wounded tail. The trap is unfamiliar to Naru. Then, she hears thunder overhead, Naru walks over to a cliff. In the sky, is a humming, orangish shapes appear in the clouds. A beautiful shot of Naru and Sarii standing on a cliff with the Predator ship plowing through clouds. After the title, we see a hawk flying overhead, and Naru’s brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers). This is his first movie role. He tells Naru who has drawn her bow while he tells the story of their father taking him for his Kuhtaamia, a rite of passage to become a hunter.
The younger Naru was taken to gather medicine with their mother. Naru pretends to snore at the story. Taabe nocks his bow and looses the arrow which we see killing the hawk in the sky. He says she was sleeping, but Naru says she was waiting for it since he has to cross the river to retrieve it. This is the difference between them, Taabe is one of the best warriors of the tribe, but Naru, it is explained later, can see things that he doesn’t notice. She tells her brother that she saw the Thunderbird, a legend of their people that is said to cause thunder with its wings and lightning with its eyes. This is the sign that she is ready for her Kuhtaamia. Taabe says that she has to hunt what hunts her. Later, Naru walks up a hill with Sarii to see the beautiful village and the setting is shown, “The Northern Great Plains: September 1719.”
Naru returns to the village and enters her teepee. Her mother, Aruka (Michelle Thrush) is grinding some green paste. Thrush is known for the drama, Blackstone which follows the fictional tribe in Alberta, Canada. Naru notes that her nother is making medicine for Taabe’s bad knee. She notes that the medicine is missing orange totsiyaa, Naru is skilled at medicine. She also answers that she wants to be a hunter because no one believes she can be one. Taabe brings back the hawk and Aruka sends her daughter out for the plant. Above a valley, the Predator ship shifts into its invisible cloak and leaves into the stormy skies, they have left behind a lone Predator (Dane DiLiegro), who seems to be a youth proving his worth as a warrior. Naru cuts free the plant and puts it in her medicine bag. She hears warriors shouting, Naru is told that a lion has taken Puhi, and they are looking for him.
The hunters move through the forest, one draws his bow hearing something, but Taabe pulls it down as Naru arrives. The warrior, Wasape (Stormee Kipp) looks down on her, but Taabe says Naru is a good tracker and can use medicine on Puhi. An ant crawls on the Predator using its invisibility mode, but it is eaten by a vole. A snake pounces on the vole then rears and strikes, but the Predators dual claws tear it apart! He is testing the most dangerous game on this planet. The hunters are led by Sarii with Naru behind him with her drawn bow. Sarii finds the slashed Puhi (Samuel Party) by a tree and while the hunters build a makeshift stretcher, Naru uses her medicine on Puhi’s bloody wounds. At night, Taabe goes to hunt the lion while others bring Puhi back with Naru reluctantly joining them. Naru discovers a skinned snake.
Naru leaves to warn her brother and is assigned Paaka (Corvin Mack) to join her. Her torch is put out by Taabe who doesn’t want to alert the cat since they are in its territory. Naru has a plan to bait the lion and attack it from a tree. Taabe goes to get the bait, but first tells his sister that this is her Kuhtaamia. On tree branches, the lion confronts Naru, she backs up holding a spear, but then gets distracted by a strange light. It is a mountain lion or cougar. She falls and cracks her head on a rock! It is dark, then Aruka is making tea in a pot when her daughter wakes up gasping in pain. Her mother tells her that she was carried back by Taabe. The tribe is excited at the arrival of Taabe who brings back the mountain lion on his shoulder. Naru staggers out to see the ceremony of Taabe being made War Chief. The tribe celebrates, but Naru then tells her brother that something skinned the snake and she has to find it. Taabe doesn’t want her to go and says she had to be carried back to home.
Morning, Naru sets out with loyal Sarii, and finds glowing green blood on a tree branch. A rabbit is grazing and we see behind it, a wolf growls, this shifts to Predator Vision where we see both animals. The wolf races after the rabbit and they collide on the invisible Predator. Wolf snarls, but is thrown away by it. He growls at the Predator and it pops its claws. Wolf leaps at it, but the claws ring, he drops past it and then falls! The Predator then carves up the wolf! It pulls out its spine and roars. We see a rabbit and Naru’s tomahawk misses it. She forages at some tree branches and forms some rope to be able to pull back her tomahawk! A rabbit is in the distance. Then, we see Naru walking with two rabbits hanging from her back. At the setting sun, Naru has a cooking fire and give a piece of the rabbit to Sarii. They go to find whatever made the tracks.
In a cave, a spray hisses on the wolf skull dissolving the remainder of its flesh. He hears Sarii’s barking and uses his invisibility cloak. Naru sees the birds circling overhead, she is stunned walking out of the forest, there is a herd of skinned buffalo! There is a cigar in the ground next to it. More hunters! She gives respect to the animal. Trees rock and then the Predator lands, splashing in a stream, and then the Predator makes a footprint. Naru falls into a bog and then makes her way through it. The Predator sees the bison corpses and also the cigar. Naru begins to get sucked into the mud and throws her tomahawk. It fails to catch on a fallen tree’s roots. Another fail. She tries again, but its another fail. Naru is up to her head in the bog, she pulls back for a throw in the black mud, tosses the tomahawk again and it catches. We know that in the first Predator that the mud confuses the Predator Vision. Free of the mud, Naru then washes her tomahawk, Sarii is there with a dead rat. They hear a growl and then reach an overlook to see a bear next to a river.
She can see the wind blowing, taking her scent, and draws her bow. The bear is sniffing trying to understand her scent. Naru looses her bow, but the bowstring snaps. The bear charges after her! She tries to restring her bow and Sarii leads the bear back to the river. The bow is ready and Sarii heads down to the river. She looses the bow and then starts to run. Naru dives into the water with the bear behind her. She reaches a dam of branches and the bear tries to shove its maw through the branches. It pauses, sniffing the air, and we hear the clacking of the Predator’s mouth. The bear tackles the Predator, its invisibility shielding turns reddish around the edges, the bear bites the Predator several times. This is the first encounter with Naru and the Predator, she has to become a warrior to face it, and also deal with the killers of the bison. Prey covers Native American life, pits Naru against the superior weaponry and fierceness of The Predator, one of the finest Predator movies!
Five Medicine Bags out of Five!
#Prey, #DanTrachetenberg, #AmberMidThunder, #DakotaBeavers, #MichelleThrush, #DaneDiLiegro
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