[Interview] How ‘PREY’ Went From an Innovative Idea To a Meaningful Movie

Courtney Howard // Film Critic

We’ve seen those ugly, deadly Predators in many different environments, from the Central American jungle to the concrete jungle of Los Angeles. They’ve even battled Xenomorphs in space, hunted man on another planet and visited suburbia. Now the clock is rewound to the creatures’ appearance on the Northern Great Plains in 1719. Director Dan Trachtenberg’s PREY takes place during this era of upheaval and colonizers – both human and alien – hell-bent on destruction. It’s centered on a young Comanche warrior, Naru (Amber Midthunder), whose under-estimated by her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), setting out on a coming-of-age quest to hunt the beast terrorizing her tribe.

Trachtenberg started developing this idea about a year after 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE was released. His impetus telling this story, as he told journalists during the virtual press conference, was to make an action-driven film and tell it visually.

“But also inject it with heart and emotion – and have it be fun. The idea to tell the engine of an underdog sports movie with an action movie was a part of the genesis of this. And then it became, ‘What if it focused on characters that are normally not the heroes of the movie that they’re in?’”

Choosing who his protagonists were going to be was birthed out of going on a field trip in 6^th grade, not having seen PREDATOR, and being told everything about the movie by his classmates.

“The one thing that really stuck with me was there was a fight on a bridge over a waterfall, between Billy, the Native American tracker, and the Predator. And then I saw the movie, years later, and that scene is not in the movie. I had always wanted to see that. We’d seen a lot of movies that were focused on Arnold Schwarzenegger and that kind of hero. What if we focused it on a different kind of character?”

Titling the film PREY shifts the focus in an innovative way in order to refurbish the franchise. He says,

“When I emailed the pitch to an executive at 20^th Century, it was in that initial pitch, largely because I knew they were either deep into prep or production on THE PREDATOR and it felt like too good of an idea to hold onto. I thought “prey” has the exact same double meaning that “predator” does so the title can function just like Predator, while still being its own title and this movie could feel like its own movie, which has always been the drive for me with remakes, adaptations or sequels. That it could be a great movie on its own, but once you include the IP, it just makes it all better – it’s not solely relying on that IP to be a good movie.”

Though the film isn’t entirely in the Comanche language, the dialect is well-represented and was included the project from day one. Producer Jhane Myers says,

“When Amber and Dakota did their first auditions, we had them audition in Comanche. From the wonderful insight of Dan, he always asked if that was a possibility and I said, ‘Yes. Absolutely.’ For me being Native and Comanche, that’s what’s really important because we never, as an audience member who grew up on the PREDATOR franchise, I’ve never seen a feature fully in my language. One thing we do as Native people, we watch films, we watch to see if they get one or two things right – something that’s authentic. This movie, even being a PREDATOR film, is filmed with authenticity. For me, to have the language in there was most important. We even pitched it that way to the studio. But now, when you do watch it on Hulu, you have to option of picking to watch a fully dubbed version in Comanche.”

Beavers loves that this is an option.

“I think it would’ve been awesome to shoot entirely in Comanche, but I’m so happy that we got to dub it in Comanche, which we got all the actors to do themselves. That was wicked fun. To have that for preservation of the language, so kids can go back and watch it in the future as something fun they can use to learn the language, I think that’s awesome.”

Trachtenberg thought it would be a fun way to tell his actors they got their parts using iconic quotes from the 1987 film. He was hoisted by his own petard. Beavers explains,

“[Dan] Facetimed me and said, ‘Do you have time to bleed?’ I was like, ‘I got time for anything, man!’”

Trachtenberg adds,

“No. The proper response is ‘I ain’t got time to bleed.’”

Midthunder had a series of questions thrown at her.

“I had a whole riddle. Dan Facetime’d me and said, ‘If you had to get somewhere and you couldn’t use a car or a plane or a train, what would you do? I think I said, ‘Hang-glider,’ because you said, ‘By air! No it has an engine.’ ‘A hang-glider with an engine?’”

Trachtenberg replies,

“No. ‘Get to the choppah!’ I thought it would be totally obvious, but it wasn’t.”

Midthunder found that the most challenging thing was wrapping her head around how much action she’d have to perform.

“When I read the script for the first time, I remember reading like 30 straight pages of action. It was just action description for so long. And still somehow, I didn’t realize what that would feel like in your body when you’re there.”

This included a lot of training to prepare physically for their parts, which led to some discomfort. She later elucidates,

“The movie was entirely physical. Dakota and I did a 4 week bootcamp before we started shooting. It had weapons training, Comanche-style archery, spears, tomahawks. Also the stunt team was there. They were putting together the fights and we’d all go work with them. We also had personal trainers.

For me, the scariest thing was the river because the idea of a live body of water was very exciting, but also terrifying. It was Summertime, but it was glacial runoff water so it was so cold. We were there for 5 days. For 5 days it was an ice-bath. Before I got in, I was filled with anxiety.”

Trachtenberg says that the difference in elevation also added to the difficulty.

“All the physical training that’s challenging on its own, we had to also do that for all of us who are not quite used to working at that elevation. Both these guys went through the ringer.”

Midthunder also had to bond with her four-legged co-star playing Naru’s pooch, Sarii.

“I love that dog with my whole heart and soul. It was rough. They got her 2 months before this movie. She had so much energy. Her name is Coco. So much of Coco being around was her running wild and doing laps and so excited to see everyone all the time. For me, personally, she was a dream. For making a movie, you know. The character of Sarii is very different than the character of Coco. That shows what a good filmmaker Dan is.”

Trachtenberg agrees,

“It was a huge difference of the making of the movie and the watching of the movie. The making of the movie was ‘How do we get Coco out of the scene? How can we shoot her and get her away?’ And the watching of the movie, everyone as we were developing it and showing cuts to friends and family, was like, ‘More dog! We love the dog!’ I was like, ‘You don’t understand. We are using every usable frame of this dog.’ She was awesome. But the challenge was it’s a dog that we believe was accurate to the time – a Carolina dog, they’re called – and it’s not they’d been training this certain dog for years like they do most movie dogs. We had to do the best with what we could. And it worked out.”

Yet, by far the worst thing cast and crew had to contend with on set was the stench of the mud pit. Trachtenberg explains,

“The haunting thing about it is that it didn’t smell at all before anyone got in it. But as soon as human flesh entered that zone, suddenly some chemical reaction happened and it was horrifying.”

Midthunder says,

“I still smell it. That is in my nose forever. So thank you, Dan.”

Part of the fun of PREY is seeing how the old school weaponry stacks up against the Predator’s alien tech. Midthunder says,

“Historically, that’s all Indigenous People had in this time period. We didn’t adapt to using firepower until pretty deep into colonization. This is right before that time period before things started mixing like with the French fur trappers [in the movie]. Going way back, we’ve always been resourceful people, through strategy or weapons. It was cool to be able to show that and take that big piece of history and put it in a movie like this and make it look cool.”

Beavers says,

“The stunt guy, Stephen, he was used to working with bows. Obviously you can’t really go super hand-to-hand with this big ol’ space alien because he’ll just level you. It’s a lot of precision. It’s a lot of speed. It’s a lot of physical movement. The way it comes together is absolutely wicked. It shows you what them Comanches can do.”

As for the Predator himself, Trachtenberg used a combination of both practical and cg to achieve the creature’s aesthetic and imposing presence.

“Most of it is practical and some of it is CG. I’m not someone who thinks CG is awful and I fetishize practical effects and suit work. Oftentimes, I feel pulled out of the movie when I see the man in that suit as much as I’ve been pulled out of a movie when I feel the artifice and digitally recreated creature or effect. I really wanted to combine both thoughts and mainly rely on the practical suit, but enhance key moments with visual effects, like his calf muscles. Sometimes the hands are changing or you see a throat throbbing.

Those are things that fall short in just a build of a suit that I thought would bring real life to feel like this is much more of a creature than we’ve seen in previous PREDATOR movies. I wanted him – the reason why we nicknamed him ‘Feral’ – to feel like he’s ferocious and alien and not a guy lumbering around in a suit, which sometimes, in some moments of the other PREDATORs, it can feel like.”

PREY will stream exclusively on Hulu starting on August 5.