The Hunt is On

It is an interesting time to be a Predator fan. For a long time it felt like the franchise was lost in the weeds, unable to figure out just how to make a proper sequel to the 1987 original. That is, of course, because it’s hard to follow up a film that was purposefully meant to be a send-up of the bloated action blockbusters that were the bread and butter of 1980s cinemas. Taking the action movie formula and turning it on its head into a slasher flick in a trick you can only pull off once, and without that cool hook, the sequels needed to find some new angle to play with. And while some were better than others – Predators is a decent follow up that expanded the franchise slightly, while both Predator 2 and The Predator were weak, ill-conceived sequels – none had the magic to match the original.

And then along came Dan Trachtenberg. He was the director of Prey, the streaming-exclusive sequel (or, really, you could kind of consider it a prequel considering the weird, in-series chronology of these films), and the film was based on his original concept: what if the Predator went to 18th century America and fought the natives. From that grain of a story came one of the best sequels to the franchise which illustrated the way forward for the series: take a story that doesn’t need or expect a Predator to show up and then, in the middle of the story, insert the outer space alien and use that alien as a way to redirect and comment on the story at hand.

The formula worked, and it worked really well. Prey became a smash hit on streaming, and it breathed new life in the franchise. And now, in 2025, we have not one but two films, both overseen by Trachtenberg, expanding the franchise even further. While Predator: Badlands will come out in November of this year, we have another streaming film to whet our whistles and get us ready for all the Predator action we could ever want. This film, Predator: Killer of Killers, expands the franchise even further, both in number of characters and settings as well as with its mythology, while also shifting us into a new medium: animated film.

The film is set across four acts, only three of which I’ll spoil here. The first takes place in Scandinavia, 841. Here we’re introduced to Viking chieftain Ursa (Lindsay LaVanchy), who is on a quest for revenge against the chieftain that killed her father decades early. With her band of warriors, including her teenage son Anders (Damien Haas), she tracks down her target so she can battle him and take her sweet revenge. Except, naturally, in the middle of this blood feud arrives a Predator, and he’s all too happy to take on all these warriors once they’ve proven themselves to be true killers.

We then move ahead to Japan, 1609. Two brothers, Kenji and Kiyoshi Kamakami (both voiced by Louis Ozawa), vie for the love of their chieftain father, a cold man who constantly makes them fight each other. When he pits them against one another for a battle to the death, ideally so one kills the other and proves themself to be a worthy successor, Kenji is unable to go through with the fight. Kiyoshi betrays him, though, scarring his face and making him an outcast in the family. Years later Kenji returns to have his vengeance, now trained as a ninja, a stealth assassin. But as he ventures into Kiyoshi’s fortress for his one-on-one battle, another stealth assassin, this one from space, arrives on the scene to battle them both.

Finally we jump ahead again to the Atlantic Ocean, 1942. Here, young fighter pilot-in-training, John J. Torres (Rick Gonzalez), wants to prove that he’s ready to take to the skies and aid in the battles of World War II. Except his commanding officer, Captain Vandy (Michael Biehn), doesn’t think Torres is ready. He leaves the young pilot behind as he takes a squad out on a patrol flight. Torres is on deck, though, when a plane comes crashing in, some weird tech impaling the body. When Torres realizes this is some kind of strange weapon, he hops in his plane, the Bullet, and flies off to warn the others. Because, of course, there’s some other enemy out there besides the Americans and the Germans, and it’s hunting all of them.

The strength of Predator: Killer of Killers, lies in the variety of its stories and settings. While each story is basically, “what happens if a Predator shows up and messes up everyone’s day,” each segment is also a self-contained adventure with its own ideas, characters, and goals. Ursa is on a quest for revenge, but because of her need for blood she pays a high price when the Predator shows up. Kenji wants his own revenge, but the Predator’s arrival makes him realize that his blood feud isn’t that important at all. And for Torres who just wants to fly, the Predator gives him an abject lesson in “be careful what you wish for”. Each story uses the Predator within to good effect, making them more than just a rehash of the basic Predator concept.

Honestly, each tale could have been their own, full-length movies. I would have happily seen longer adventures with Ursa, Kenji, and Torres, as each are interesting characters with their own worlds that could have been worth exploring. It would be interesting, as a thought experiment, to play those out, wondering how long the Predator might have been stalking Ursa and her band. Could it have attacked her sooner? Was it waiting for her to prove herself, or did it just arrive and this was the first warrior band it found? Each story could be fleshed out in this way, and I’m sure they would have made compelling stories given more time and length.

With that said, each segment is well contained and while you could imagine how they would work fleshed out, I wouldn’t necessarily say they were begging for it. The Predator in each segment shows up at the right time to get the action really going, after we’ve learned just enough about the characters and their worlds that we’re properly invested in their adventures. We want them to survive their encounters with these killers from space, and when they come away victorious (as is the formula for this series) we do feel like their success is earned. Small stories can still be satisfying, and these all are.

There is a fourth act, of course, and I don’t want to spoil it. What I will say is that it manages the task of bringing these tales together in an interesting way. Beyond that, though, it adds some new wrinkles to the Predator mythology and formula that could be explored either in Predator: Badlands or in some future animated adventure down the road. I’d be interested in this, in seeing where it goes, because the mythology building also makes some changes to the Predator formula that I’m unsure about. It’s a situation where I want to see more, but only because I have thoughts and until further adventures come out I don’t want to decide too quickly about the mythology and my thoughts on the matter. It’s the one section of the story that left me a little uneasy, just because of those changes, and I really need to know what comes next to decide if this was a good or bad decision.

What was a great decision, though, was moving this story over to animation. It allowed the production team over at The Third Floor, Inc. the freedom to experiment and play with the action and adventure. While I’m sure most of what’s seen on screen could have been handled with practical effects and CGI, it would have been expensive and, at times, dangerous for the stunt crew. That’s to say nothing for how costly all the costumes and sets would have been across the four segments. Animation allows for wildly different settings and stories without massively driving up the budget, meaning the creative team could follow their whims and create stellar stories and action as they liked… and they did.

I really don’t have a lot of complaints about Predator: Killer of Killers. It’s a well made, beautifully animated, gory and violent Predator film that properly carries on the franchise’s direction in the wake of Prey. That film was a breath of fresh air for Predator fans, and this film shows that wasn’t just a one-off occurrence. The series continues pushing forward, with new ideas and new settings, and Predator: Killer of Killers shows there’s a lot of life in the franchise so long as the creative team keeps pursuing their great ideas. A good story coupled with a Predator there to kill everyone… who knew it could work so well?