The official trailer for Prey, the latest instalment of the Predator franchise, has been released - and it looks like it’s going to be an absolute blast.
The prequel film is set in 1719 and follows Naru, a fierce warrior of the Comanche Nation, a Native American tribe. Naru, sensing danger, heads out to protect her tribe, but of course, the danger is not anything Naru has ever seen before: instead, it is the aliens that we’ve all been terrified of since watching the 1987 original.
“I saw a sign in the sky. I’m ready,” says Naru in the trailer. The two-minute glimpse at the new film is absolutely packed with action: Naru is chased by a gigantic bear which gets destroyed by an invisible enemy; there are bow and arrow fights, battles with white men with guns, chase scenes through wheat fields, major battle scenes, horses riding through misty woods and silhouettes of aliens flexing their fists.
“They hunt to live... It lives to hunt,” says writing over the top of the scenes.
As if by response Naru, who is being played by Amber Midthunder, says, “It knows how to hunt. I know how to survive.”
Prey is being directed by Dan Trachtenberg, director of 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane with Native American Jhane Myers (1883) producing.
Actors joining Midthunder include Julian Black Antelope (Debris, Hold The Dark), Michelle Thrush (Fargo, Red Snow) and Dane DiLiegro (Side Hustle, American Horror Stories), plus rising stars Dakota Beaver and Stormee Kipp.
The filmmakers were “committed to creating a film that provides an accurate portrayal of the Comanche and brings a level of authenticity that rings true to its Indigenous peoples,” said a Prey statement, adding that the cast is “comprised almost entirely of Native and First Nation’s talent.”
In an interview with Screenrant, Trachtenberg said that he was “really fixated on making a movie that could be told with as few words as possible” and that he “wanted to tell a survival story that would be visual and visceral.”
“I think, on the one hand, we wanted to separate from Predator and have an experience that felt interesting and fascinating and exciting even before the Predator shows up. We’re investigating how our character Naru interacts with her culture and the time period, and all of those things,” said Trachtenberg.
The first Predator film was released in 1987 and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leader of an elite paramilitary rescue team. Since then, there have been three subsequent films. The latest was released in 2018 and told the story of a group of ex-soldiers and a biologist working to stop the Predators when a boy accidentally triggers their return.
