Having your expectations about a particular film blown to smithereens – in a good way, not the hype-exceeds-reality way – is one of those rare life pleasures that never gets old.
Especially in an era where every single film is known about, dissected and examined to within an inch of its cinematic life, and you usually walk into the cinema feeling like you know everything there is to know already, the element of surprise well and truly gone.
The film du jour that has managed to evade this tsunami of informational pre-loading is Prey, the latest searingly good instalment in the Predator series, which kicked off way back in 1987 when the future governor of California, one Arnold Schwarzenegger, went head-to-head with an armoured, technologically-advanced alien who arrived on Earth to hunt for sport.
Whereas Predator was about a soldier armed with high-powered weapons and military training taking om a fearsomely cloaked extraterrestrial foe, Prey centres on a young Comanche woman, Naru (Amber Midthunder who is magnificent in the role) in 1719 in the northern section of the Great Plains of America (think eastern Montana. Northeastern Wyoming) who is adamant she wants to become a warrior like her older brother and revered hunter Taabe (Dakota Beavers) with whom she is close.
Skilled as a practitioner of medicine and trained as a gatherer and preparer of foods as are all the women of the tribe, Naru is restless, unwilling to slip into the traditional role expected of her and tenaciously dedicated to proving she has what it takes to become a great warrior.
So, when a mountain lion attacks one of the great hunters of the tribe, Naru insists on joining the hunting party, seeing it as an opportunity to prove her value and to break gender norms in the process, emboldened by a sign she witnesses in the sky – a violent rippling of the above grey clouds which is actually the Predator spacecraft dropping off its passenger – which she interprets as proof that she is ready for her Great Hunt where the hunter takes on a creature that would normally hunt them such as a bear or mountain lion.
The stage is set for a showdown with the alien interloper, but the fascinating thing about Prey, which devotes much of its time to representing Comanche culture in all its rich diversity, including liberal use of its language (with no subtitles which works superbly well for creating a vibrantly involving sense of time and place) is that it doesn’t rush into the bloodfest that awaits.
In fact, much of the first 45 minutes of the film is devoted to Naru going about her day with her faithful hunting dog Sarii, fulfilling the traditional tasks assigned to her gender, but also taking every opportunity to test and hone her skills, all in readiness to prove she has what it takes to be the great hunter she so desperately aspires to be.
It’s interesting that Naru is pushing the boundaries as she is when she is because 1719 is a time of slowly creeping but noticeable change when the French voyageurs (fur transporters) are making increasing inroads into First Nations territory which has so far left the tribe largely untouched but which is beginning to make its mark on an ancient ways of Plains life.
While the voyageurs end up becoming fodder for the predator of Prey, played by Dane DiLiegro in full motion capture mode, along with a great many forest animals including some animals used to being apex predators themselves, they are also used to underscore the ongoing threat posed by the arrival of Europeans on the North American continent which sadly will persist beyond the violent threat posed by the alien hunter.
So, while Naru may face her greatest opponent yet, she is also becoming equipped to face off against another ruthless enemy who, several shocking scenes graphically illustrate, possesses a cruelty of purpose that almost rivals the Predator’s own.
It’s this salient subtext in Prey that adds even more thematic and emotional substance to a film that is already burgeoning with a great deal of emotional resonance and thoughtfulness of intent that bolsters scenes between Naru and the Predator that are as bloodthirsty and violent as you might expect but which also possess a balletic intensity which is enthralling as it viscerally immersive.
It is the willingness of the production team behind the film, including director Dan Trachtenberg and producer Jhane Myers, who is herself Comanche and who brings a beguiling level of cultural authenticity to the film, to balance the introspective elements with the aggressively extrospection aspects that really sets Prey apart.
Presented with cinematography that is luxuriantly expansive and richly, abundantly alive, whether its staring across the seemingly limitless expanse of the Great Plains or deep within the heavily shaded, eerily claustrophobic forest, Prey is a cleverly realised film that knows that the titanic fights between Naru and the Predator will only really mean something if we truly understand why it is Naru is fighting so hard and why it matters to her, beyond responding to a clear existential threat to her own person and those loves and wants to play a role in providing for and protecting.
Her depth and growth as a character is deeply nuanced making her one of those rare protagonists in a horror/sci-fi fantasy film that isn’t a cardboard cutout but who feels like a highly principled and determined individual with a rich cultural heritage she both embraces and challenges, who has a lot on the line and who is fighting as much for the future and what she hopes it will mean as the pressingly violent here and now.
Prey is lavishly textured and narratively complex, a film that feels as much like an indie exploration of culture, the passing of an era and and person’s reckoning with who they want to be, as it is a race against a bloodthirsty enemy whose only concern is besting every opponent that comes its way, and the one person who turns out to be capable of standing in its way, shattering expectations everywhere as she does so.
Near flawless in its execution, Prey is the best thing to happen to the Predator franchise in years, turning the hunter into the hunted, placing primacy on Comanche culture in a way that is vibrantly authentic and meaningful and delivering up a protagonist who is bold, likable and every bit the match for an alien hunter who discovers that perhaps they are not the top of the heap after all, a realisation which fits neatly with a film dedicated to shattering expectations every step of its mesmerisingly immersive way.