Bringing representation to pulse-pounding life, 'Prey' is the apex 'Predator'
LOS ANGELES — In an age that has blurred the lines of what television movies even are, it's fitting that one that feels too cinematic for TV should be nominated for six Emmys. It's sci-fi but a period piece. It's about a young woman coming into her own, an atmospheric coming-of-age story — with a space monster in it. It's a prequel that's a clear improvement over its predecessors. But rarest: It's a wide-audience Hollywood movie with an Indigenous cast.
As the Predator found, this "Prey" surprises.
Director and co-writer ("") says he wanted to tell a story primarily through action an action movie. "Could there be a real emotional core that would be as [involving] as the action scenes? So I thought about taking the engine of a sports movie, an underdog story — then we'd be firing on all cylinders. Is there a protagonist we never get to see on-screen, so the underdog story is not just inside the movie; it's outside as well? And that led me to Native Americans and, more specifically, the Comanche, who so often in American cinema have been relegated to playing the sidekick or the villain."
