Prey (2022)
★★★★ — Prey (2022)
Vikings. Pirates. Give me them next. Please.
Because Prey has done something I genuinely didn't think this franchise was still capable of: it's made the Predator scary again. After years of diminishing returns and increasingly bloated sequels, this is the film that strips everything right back and reminds you exactly why the original had you on the edge of your seat. It's tense, it's atmospheric, and it absolutely nails the thrill of the hunt.
The setting alone is a masterstroke. Dropping the action into 1700s Comanche territory gives the story a completely fresh canvas while feeling totally natural for the concept. There's no awkward retrofitting here, no sense that the filmmakers are reaching. The world feels lived in, the stakes feel real, and crucially, the power imbalance between hunter and hunted feels genuinely earned rather than manufactured.
A lot of that comes down to Amber Midthunder, who is flat-out brilliant as Naru. She plays her as clever and resourceful, someone who has to think her way through problems rather than punch through them, and that makes every victory land with real weight. You believe her as an underdog. You root for her completely. It's the kind of central performance that a film like this lives or dies on, and she carries it with ease.
The Predator itself deserves a mention too. The design feels more primal here, rawer and more predatory in a way that suits the era beautifully. There's a creature-feature quality to its early appearances that the franchise had lost somewhere along the way, and getting that back makes a huge difference. When it shows up, you feel it.
What excites me most, though, isn't just the film in front of me. It's what Prey proves is possible. The concept is genuinely timeless if you approach it with this kind of care and restraint. Spartans. Vikings. Pirates. Samurai. The trenches of World War Two. There are so many eras just sitting there waiting, each one offering its own version of that same primal dynamic between hunter and hunted, technology and instinct, terror and survival. I've since had a look at Predator: Killer of Killers to see if that promise is being followed through on, and the anthology approach genuinely seems to be the direction this franchise needed to find.
Because the concept has always been simple and brilliant: drop an apex predator into a situation where it has every advantage, and then watch someone find a way to fight back. What Prey understands, and what too many of its predecessors forgot, is that you have to make the audience feel the impossibility of that task before the triumph means anything. You can't shortcut the tension. You have to earn it.
Smart, stylish, brutal, and grounded. Four stars, and honestly it might be the second-best film in the franchise outright. The blood is very much still in it yet.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2025-04-10
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus · Channel 4 Plus
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Hulu
Physical: Amazon US
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More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)
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