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Warning: This article contains spoilers.
Now streaming on Hulu, director Dan Trachtenberg ‘s Prey takes the Predator franchise back to its roots, opting for a lean action horror movie set in the wilderness. The story takes place in the Comanche Nation in 1719, where Naru ( Amber Midthunder ) seeks to prove her worth and protect her people after discovering a highly-evolved predator hunting their lands.
Along the way, Prey includes a plethora of nods to the franchise through iconic lines of dialogue, set pieces, and Easter eggs. Let’s take a look at the most notable connections.
The most notable Easter egg found in Prey is the “Raphael Adolini 1715” antique flintlock pistol from Predator 2 .
Predator 2 sees its alien hunter use 1997 Los Angeles as its hunting ground, only to finally be thwarted by protagonist Lieutenant Mike Harrigan ( Danny Glover ). In the climactic showdown, Harrigan tracks the injured Predator to an underground spacecraft and finishes the kill. Then, a group of different Predators appear, retrieving the body of their fallen comrade.
They acknowledge Harrigan as a worthy hunter, and one of them presents Harrigan with a trophy for his kill. It’s the above-mentioned Raphael Adolini gun from 1715.
In Prey , Naru gets captured by French fur trappers. Among them is translator Raphael Adolini (Bennett Taylor). The group’s attempts to get information on the Predator from Naru and subsequently use her as bait fail, resulting in most of their deaths. In the aftermath, Naru discovers a wounded Raphael, who gives her his pistol in exchange for medical treatment.
Within this callback to Predator 2 is another; Naru gives Raphael the Orange Totsiyaa flower, which lowers his body temperature, as the mud did for Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in 1987’s Predator . Naru observes as the Predator overlooks Raphael, unable to detect his cooler temperature… until stepping on his wounded leg.
Prey‘s animated end credits sequence later explains how the Predators came into possession of Raphael Adolini’s pistol. After recapping the film’s events, the final animated scene sees Predator ships emerging from the sky, right above the Comanche tribe. It’s not difficult to further tie this back to Predator 2 , in which they’ve come to retrieve the body of their fallen, therefore removing all trace of its existence from Earth; and they presumably left without harming Naru or her people. She emerged the stronger hunter, after all, which the Predators are likely to respect.
Naru delivers the pistol and the Predator’s head to her tribe elders in the final moments of Prey, so it makes sense that both get passed on to the Predators from the sky.
The more intriguing question is what trophy would they have bestowed upon Naru in exchange for her kill? Some of their advanced Predator technology, perhaps?
Prey also repurposes two of the original film’s most iconic lines. While held in captivity by the trappers, Naru tells her older brother Taabe ( Dakota Beavers ) that she doesn’t know if the Predator can be killed. His response, “If it bleeds, we can kill it,” echoes Dutch’s sentiments from the first movie. Later, Naru channels Dutch in her final confrontation, baiting the creature into her trap with his iconic line, “Do it! Do it now!”
This climactic battle takes place in a sinking mud pit discovered earlier by Naru, where she narrowly escaped. Midhunter previously shared with us how dealing with the mud pit was physically grueling and putrid. It’s another parallel to the original; Predator’s Dutch discovers the alien’s inability to detect cooler temperatures after getting covered in mud.
Sonny Landham in 1987’s ‘Predator’
One of the most subtle callbacks involves Taabe. The fur trappers cut Taabe’s chest with a knife to get Naru to cooperate. It’s a direct visual nod to Predator ‘s tracker Billy Sole ( Sonny Landham ), who cuts his chest with a knife when he stays behind to take on the Predator himself. The film never shows us this fight, though. In an interview with Empire Magazine, per AvPGalaxy , Trachtenberg revealed that not seeing Billy’s final stand was a direct inspiration for Prey .
The tribe member that shushes Naru in the field as the Predator is pursuing them? Another nod to the 1987 film. This moment emulates the scene where Mac ( Bill Duke ) grabs Dillon ( Carl Weathers ), pulls him into the bush, and quiets him. He points out the Predator, but his attempts to outsmart the alien end when the iconic three-pointed laser locks onto his forehead.
Harlan Kywayhat as Itsee in 20th Century Studios’ PREY, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
The Raphael Adolini pistol from Predator 2 takes center stage as the most significant reference, but Trachtenberg pays tribute to Predator with no shortage of callbacks and subtle recreations.
Did you spot any other Prey Easter eggs or connections? Comment below and let us know.
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Dashed hopes lead to a kind of desperation without equal in Pang Ho-cheung’s movie Dream Home. This unmatched story satirizes Hong Kong’s housing bubble as well as imagines the undue sacrifices of one potential homebuyer. Not only does this character reject the red tape and systems standing in the way of her goal, she does so in the most grisly way imaginable.
The uninitiated will balk at the motive behind Cheng Lai-sheung’s ( Josie Ho) murder spree in this splattery 2010 movie, but as the story unfolds, audiences do the unthinkable — they sympathize with a cold-blooded killer. Compassion doesn’t come easy in a movie as nonlinear and twisted as Dream Home , however, for every life Lai-sheung takes, a little more of her interiority is revealed. The tones start to clash as viewers are shuffled between the past and present, yet the tradeoff is a full-clad character.
As overwhelming as the violence becomes in Dream Home , the other hurdles in Lai-sheung’s life are even more so. From working two dead-end jobs to negotiating some semblance of a relationship with her part-time boyfriend, Lai-sheung is understandably frustrated. And that stress only grows so long as she continues to save up for her own place. That covetous flat with a breathtaking view of the harbor is starting to look more and more like a castle in the sky, though.
Unexpected problems at home are revealed in spurts, but as a whole they force Lai-sheung to reevaluate her desires and obligations. This poignant depiction of family-related heartaches, told with realism and potency, demonstrate how hopeless Lai-sheung’s situation must feel, and also just how much has been taken from her. Be it safety, opportunities or loved ones, Ho’s character has been bruised at every turn of her existence. Misfortunes have always held her back from moving ahead, or they’ve stifled her aspiration. Lai-sheung’s position in life only starts to change when she puts herself first. Her determination is undeniable now as she allows her ailing father to die, and she uses his insurance payout to buy the apartment of her dreams.
Unfortunately, Lai-sheung’s sudden self-interest is no match for fate. The property’s owners flip-flop at the last minute following a big hike in the stock market; they realize they can relist the apartment at a higher cost. Right then and there, Lai-sheung’s heart breaks and her mind snaps. All her work and everything (and everyone) she sacrificed to get to this point was presumably for nothing. This soul-crushing revelation comes later on in the movie after Josie Ho has already performed a broad range of emotions on screen. Yet it is the quiet and authentic disappointment on Lai-sheung’s face upon hearing the bad news that stays with viewers. Maybe even endears her to them.
Many slashers are detached from the world they are set in; they resign themselves to self-contained locations and matters. They often overlook what is truly happening beyond the immediate mayhem. Meanwhile, Dream Home is fully engaged with its surroundings and time period. The Hong Kong seen here is less a setting and more of an inescapable atmosphere. The economic disorder fueling Lai-sheung’s massacre keeps the story both grounded in reality and emphasizes a universal fear of insecurity.
The emergence of Hong Kong’s official ratings system in the late ‘80s led to the creation of the permissive Category III (or Cat III) classification. Hong Kong movies had previously abided by a series of content restrictions, but with this “adults only” rating in place, filmmakers were essentially given a license to be transgressive. The next decade then saw a flood of disturbing movies before the trend tapered off after 2000. That heyday of gory and depraved Cat III is certainly in the past, but Dream Home is an aggressive reminder of what the era was best known for.
By showing the bloodshed sooner rather than later, Dream Home satisfies eager slasher fans. Pang understands the importance of violence and mayhem in these kinds of movies, so he pays extra attention to the sanguinary sequences. Nevertheless, there are no fast or empty kills here; Lai-sheung’s attacks are as long and draining as they are brutal. And with every new victim, her physical strain catches up with her mental exhaustion. Lai-sheung goes on to make mistakes, some happier than others, as she hacks away at the tenants of Victoria Bay, but fallible killers are a refreshing sight in this subgenre.
Pang doesn’t hold back when showcasing Lai-sheung’s butchery. Dream Home ’s slaughter scenes are divided into three set-pieces, with each one longer and more outrageous than the last. The cold open is the least fancy — a security guard fails to free himself from the zip tie around his throat — whereas those remaining demonstrations of Lai-sheung’s driven fury are intricate and extremely vicious. Gore buffs can look forward to poked-out eyeballs, spilled innards and suffocation by vacuum cleaner. The story shows no mercy whatsoever as Lai-sheung ambushes her prey and singlehandedly brings down the building’s property value. The grand tally is a whopping eleven corpses, all killed over the course of one dreadful night.
In what might be the movie’s most controversial choice, the consequences of Lai-sheung’s actions are never shown on screen. As far as anyone can tell, she gets away with her crimes, and she gets her dream home at a bargain price. This entire outcome may not sit well with everyone, but the audacity is admirable. And by the end, viewers have fully come to understand Lai-sheung even if they can’t excuse what she did.
This unique story, one conveying misery, longing and letdown all at warp speed, feels at home in horror. The main attraction is understandably the visceral carnage, but how Lai-sheung’s emotional suffering is tapped into and then later relieved is also astonishing. Time hasn’t diminished the value of Dream Home either, and from the looks of things on the real-estate front, the movie’s relevance only grows.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
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