The House of Macleod hits the hunt with PREY!!

Published: August 5, 2022, 10:42 PM CST by HouseOfMacleod

Hi movie buffs and welcome to the House of Macleod movie review corner! Today we take a look at PREY (2022, R, 1h 39m) Starring Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Stormee Kipp, Michelle Thrush, Julian Black Antelope and Dane DiLiegro. Set 300 years ago in 1719 against the backdrop of the Comanche Nation in the wilderness of the Northern Great Plains, we meet the story's heroine Naru (Midthunder) and her tracker dog Sarii. Naru spends her day training to become a hunter against the wishes of her tribe and her brother Taabe (beavers). One day, she is on the hunt for deer to feed her family and prove she is ready for a trial that will prove her usefulness not only as a proud warrior but also as a skilled hunter when she witnesses a "Thunderbird" in the sky. She sees this as an omen that she is ready and sets out with her brothers to track and kill a mountain lion that is stalking her tribe and has previously attacked one of the tribe's hunters. Once they find their deceased brother, they find that he is alive but badly injured and must return to camp if he is to survive. Taabe decides to stay and finish the hunt while Naru decides to follow this as the perfect opportunity to not only kill the Lion, but also prove herself as a hunter among her brothers and her group. Using his tracking skills, Naru discovers that the Lion has been hunted by something much larger that has a nasty penchant for skinning snakes and leaving massive footprints. I won't say much else about the plot because I really don't want to spoil it for you because I really enjoyed PREY and I think even though I marked this post with spoilers, like usual, I'd be a dick if I told you the whole story. You know, in the past 32 years since the release of PREDATOR 2, I have to say that PREY is the first one that has made me feel like I'm watching an actual installment of the franchise. Fair enough, it's a prequel that's set three hundred years in the past, but it's tied so deeply that it really feels right at home with its predecessors. If I had to give you any advice, that advice would be to go sit in front of PREDATOR 2 and watch it as soon as you can afterwards. PREY returns to the grand formula that the original did so well without being cheesy or cartoonish like the AVP films ended up being. Director Dan Trachtenberg deftly crafts a film that not only respects its source material, but also manages to bring a new look to the predatory creature itself by reverting its technology to 300 years ago. The story that scribe Patrick Aison has set up with Trachtenberg is not only taught but engaging and features absolutely fantastic settings and lots of that glorious violence we've come to expect from a Predator movie. Jeff Cutter provides the cinematography with Alberta, Canada, for the Great Plains, capitalizing on this with absolutely stunning shots of the landscape which is used tactically not only as a hunting ground for the Predators but also as the backdrop for the action . To me, it almost felt like the countryside was a character in the movie, like Gotham City for Batman. Sarah Schachner provides an excellent soundtrack with a string-based arrangement that not only helps build the tension of the story, but provides much of the heart of the film. Speaking of the core of the film, Amber Midthunder is fantastic as trainee healer and hunter Naru. She spends most of the film alone with only her dog to keep her company. Normally this would hurt a character's progression, but Midthunder takes on the role as if she was born to play it and makes a formidable foe for the Predator who stands tall with Schwarzenegger and Glover.

The Predator himself (Dane Diliegro) is no slouch in this movie, making quick work of nearly every aggressive species he can find on the Great Plains while really shining in a scene where he finds himself in the middle of a battle with some French travelers who, as you can imagine, stand less than a snowball in the underworld stand a chance against the trained and skilled warrior with their primitive weaponry of the era. I love the Predator franchise, readers of my recent PREDATOR 2 throwback will know that and as a fan, I really loved PREY and would really love to see more of the Comanche tribe that feature in this movie. At one hour and thirty-nine minutes, it won't take much of your time, but you'll be glad you spent it tracking the monster with Naru and Sarii. PREY is available on HULU in the US and Disney plus in the rest of the world starting today.

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