Predator is an American science fiction action anthology media franchise centered on the film series depicting humankind’s encounters with an intelligent race of extraterrestrial trophy-seeking, DNA, engineering military personnel known as the “Predator”. The series began with Predator (1987), which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and ever since then it has received 4 sequels and two crossovers with the Alien franchise. The latest film in the franchise was The Predator (2018) and now it is back with a 5th film Prey (2022) directed by Dan Trachtenberg and distributed by Hulu. Following article contains major spoilers for Prey movie since it premiered at SDCC 2022 and some lucky viewers have shared the major spoilers and the plot of the film. So read at your own risk!
Prey Plot Summary The Opening
Naru is out hunting or something with her dog but the dog gets its tail stuck in a bear trap and Naru demonstrates her medical knowledge to help the dog. A thing to note here is that Naru has a pouch with herbs or something and is seen using herbs throughout the film. She sees a strange formation of clouds and light in the sky. We the audience know its the predator ship, but to her its a sign that she is finally ready to be a hunter.
In her Comanche tribe Naru is told by everyone that because she is a girl she should do women stuff in the camp rather than be a hunter. But she insists that she wants to be a hunter and we then meet her Mom who has a good presence in the film. Her mom discusses the film’s theme which is that you hunt to survive. We meet her dad too or at least a chief and we meet her brother Taabe who is a bad ass and the billy of the film. They show off customs of the tribe which are very interesting.
In order for a member of the tribe to become a hunter they have a rite of passage where they have to go our and start tracking a big animal and when they kill it they basically have achieved being a hunter. Cut forward, a party of the young men have to go out and find a companion that was attacked by a lion and Naru convinces them to let her come along. During this time she starts tracking something huge which will become the animal she has to kill to achieve the title of hunter.
The Progression
So while all this is going on we cut back and forth to short scenes of the Predator and his various prey. These scenes break down the theme of predator / prey / survival / food chain through outstanding visual storytelling. In one scene we start by watching an ant crawl through the forest but suddenly it begins to crawl into mid air and we realize it is crawling on the foot of the camouflaged predator. A rat appears and eats the ant. Then a snake appears and lunges at the rat, killing it. Then the snake becomes aware of the Predator.
It squares off against it. We see the Predator take its skull which is pretty cool. Later Naru finds the rest of the snake which tries to bite her even though it doesn’t have a head (the producer Jhane Myers explained later that that is an actual thing snakes do and told a funny story of when she showed a video of an actual snake doing that to a room full of executives after they had had breakfast). Another early Predator scene starts with a wolf attacking a rabbit…which leads to the wolf squaring off with the Predator which makes for an INCREDIBLE MOMENT. We get to see as the predator uses its blades to remove the spin and skull from the wolf. It’s like watching a butcher who does it as a routine and there are a lot of de-spine-ing and de-skull-ing scenes in the film.
We watch Naru build a rope from… tree bark or some sort of vegetation. She builds a long rope which is used to tether her tomahawk to herself. Naru is attacked by the bear and you guys have obviously scene that in the trailer. Holy shit it is an awesome scene. expecially when the yautja picks up the bears corpse and the blood drizzles all over the predator. There is also a scene someone around here when Naru finds a pack of buffalo who have been skinned. But it turns out they weren’t skinned by the predator but by some french hunters who we dont see until later in the film.
The predator starts hunting the camanche hunters and there are some absolutely brutal kills. The Predator kills basically everyone except Naru, who had been snagged in a bear trap. The french hunters finally arrive in the film and take her hostage and we find that her brother is already their hostage. Raphael Adolini was one of these guys was the one man in the camp who was able to speak with Naru.
The Frenchmen set up a trap for the Predator by using Naru and her brother as bait. This is the scene in the trailer and posters in a smokey burned out area. Most of the frenchmen are hiding under the ground in this area, but some of the main ones are perched atop a nearby hill. They predator sneaks up on them and messes them up, then goes to where Naru is and clears the rest of the frenchmen there. In the meantime, Naru and her brother manage to escape.
The Final Act and Prey Ending
Raphael, who has by now had a foot dismembered, receives medial treatment from Naru in exchange for giving her his gun from predator 2 and teacher her how to use it. There is a badass fight involving Naru and her brother Taabe and the Predator. Taabe spears the predator in which is a very satisfying and badass moment. However, he himself is killed.
Somewhere around her Naru goes all out on some of the surviving frenchmen in a badass scene. Naru sets a trap using one of the survived frenchmen as bait. She sets a huge bonfire, making herself essentially invisible to the predator, and shoots it in the head from behind. This doesn’t kill the predator but knocks off its mask, which Naru steals. There are some badass fighting moment between the two.
She sets up another trap in a mud pit that she had been stuck in earlier in the film. She sets the predator helmet up looking at a certain spot in the pit. Then she uses her tethered tomahawk to force the predator to that exact spot. The predator I think uses its wrist gauntlet to fire something at her, but it causes its own mask to attack and behead him. Naru lets out her war cry which got a big cheer. In the final scene, Naru walks back to her tribe’s camp carrying the severed head of the Predator, mirroring an earlier scene where her brother carried the lion’s head and body, and finally giving her the moment where she has achieved her goal of being a hunter.
She also gives the Raphael Adolini pistol to the chief (her father?). Here we finally get a close up of the inscription on it. The beginning segment of the end credits are animated in the style of native american teepee art. The final shot of this animated segment show that more spaceships have arrived.
If you have any questions regarding Prey, feel free to ask in the comments below and stay tuned. As usual, like, subscribe and share our articles as we here are trying to build a community of people High on Cinema!
The Chief is not her father.
Earlier in the film when Naru and her mother are preparing food, Naru picks up a knife to cut up the fish she has caught. Her mother responds to this with the words “Your father left you that knife to cut taro root” (if I recall that line correctly).
This clearly implies that her father is no longer alive.
Thanks a lot for your input!