Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

It Lives To Hunt

June 7, 2022, by JimC

Barry McKnight scouted up the new brand-new, full-length trailer for Prey. I’m in.

If you haven’t seen previous posts, here’s the caper from Deadline:

Set in the Comanche Nation 300 years ago, Prey tells the story of a young woman, Naru (Amber Midthunder), a fierce and highly skilled warrior. She has been raised in the shadow of some of the most legendary hunters who roam the Great Plains, so when danger threatens her camp, she sets out to protect her people. The prey she stalks, and ultimately confronts, turns out to be a highly evolved alien predator with a technically advanced arsenal, resulting in a vicious and terrifying showdown between the two adversaries.

I have a strong bias, of course, but frontier North America has always seemed to me to be an ideal setting for horror/sci-fi/fantasy. For Europeans, it was an alien world, full of threats. For the native peoples, the arrival of Europeans was an apocalyptic alien invasion. The landscape itself is often fantastical and weird. That’s rich hunting grounds for storytellers.

Note that there are Europeans with firearms in the mix. I will be interested to see who they are. The timestamp of 300 years ago marks the date at 1722, when Comanche bands and family groups were already established in the Southern Plains. Probably Spaniards, but could be French. Not too many English in that neighborhood, but suchlike could be explained.

I always feel a poignant pang at storytelling like this, because I think this is the kind of story Robert E. Howard might well have told, had he not cut his storytelling career short through suicide. As with Black Sails, I like to think that his shade haunted the writers’ room.

 

Filed Under: Chapters

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Comments

  1. Stanley Wheeler says

    June 7, 2022 at 2:29 pm

    Looks like Predator as the basis for the Wendigo legends–cool idea. The Comanche probably called it something other than the Wendigo, but that was the thought I had while watching the trailer.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      June 7, 2022 at 2:35 pm

      I think you’re on the mark.

      Reply
  2. Quixotic Mainer says

    June 7, 2022 at 2:38 pm

    Hat tip to Miss Naru for inventing the rope dart tomahawk! I’ve mostly ignored the sequels, but the original Predator, and to a lesser extent the second outing are treasures. This I will happily hunt up via wireless on some rainy day.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      June 7, 2022 at 3:53 pm

      Yes, this is a perfect rainy day, clean-the-guns watch.

      Reply
  3. Eccentric Cowboy says

    June 8, 2022 at 2:39 pm

    In my teenage years I was perhaps the most die hard Predator fan you could meet. I was the sucker who bought anything with the stamp on it. But now older, wiser, and more cynical, especially after the apocalyptic disaster that was The Predator as well as Aliens: Prometheus and Covenant, I’m fairly skeptical of this upcoming movie. I don’t wish to be a stick in the mud, but one has to acknowledge which way the winds are blowing.

    I’m all for a Predator story on the American frontier. It still mystifies me that Dark Horse comics didn’t do more such stories. But given the current media climate, I suspect they’ll botch it. Admittedly, the Comanches are a bit of a blank spot on my frontier map, an error I must rectify, but to my knowledge they had little in the way of warrior women. We of course know of Pine Leaf of the Crows from Jim Beckworth and Lozen of the Apache, so it’s far from impossible to have an epic Comanche warrior woman, but I don’t trust modern writers to do such a concept justice. Or to do Yautja/Predator stories any justice for that matter.

    I pray that I’m wrong, but I’m keeping my head down for this one.

    Reply
  4. John Hocking says

    June 9, 2022 at 7:33 am

    Please excuse this random note vectoring in from deep space but I just searched ‘extreme prejudice’ and can’t spot a mention on this site since 2017.

    In case you missed it, the blu-ray of Walter Hill’s Extreme Prejudice was released a couple weeks back. I saw it decades ago on videotape and don’t believe it ever had a proper DVD release. It looks gorgeous in remastered wide screen.

    I’m sure you know the story; this is a modern-day (1980’s) narco-western. And it kicks ass. Seriously, this flick is so manly I had to stop the disc twice to shave.

    Cost me 11 bucks at Best Buy and it would have been worth owning at three times the price.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      June 9, 2022 at 8:33 am

      Yes! That’s a gap that must be filled. Thanks for throwing up the smoke signal.

      Reply
  5. Thanatos says

    June 9, 2022 at 8:28 am

    Pro: thumbs up for the Old West setting! It seems logical after the game reserve planet idea, which was the last Predator movie I saw. Now for the contra: I’m not an expert on the subject, but from what I’ve read, I don’t think the Comanche were champions of women’s rights. You know, gang rape, abduction, sexual slavery and non-woke deeds like that… They should’ve used the Apache, they have documented warrior women.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      June 9, 2022 at 8:32 am

      Valid.

      Reply
  6. Thanatos says

    August 7, 2022 at 1:25 am

    I’ve watched it last night. Oh boy… I really wanted to like this, because I’m a huge fan of weird westerns. Rant initiated:

    For a film, that prided itself on its Native cast, the protagonists speak like people from LA and are so obviously half-castes, it hurts the eye. Half of Canada is working for the US film industry, come on, do better!

    I’ve read a few Predator and AvP novels back in the day, Steve Perry’s Prey even had a heroine, Machiko Noguchi, who fought Xenomorphs and young buck Predators on Planet Texas. The Yautja breathe methane, but this alien is running around and fighting with an uncovered mouth. It also looks like it was ordered from Wish. Why do they feel the need to update their look? I disliked this in Predators as well.

    The French colonization attempt in Texas failed 30 years before this film takes place. And they were in the Eastern part and faced entirely different tribes. The main enemies the tribes would fight (apart from each other) during this time were Mestizo soldiers in service of Spain. But the Latino character is the only decent Non-Comanche. Was Fox afraid of being called Hispanophobic?

    People armed with ponderous flintlock muskets would have never been able to kill that many bison.

    And have your protagonist lift some weights and do some push-ups a’la Linda Hamilton, because she looks like someone, who could be knocked over by her own pooch, yet she’s fighting 6 ft men and 7 ft aliens.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      August 7, 2022 at 6:33 am

      Uh-oh. Watching tonight.

      Reply
      • Thanatos says

        August 8, 2022 at 3:10 am

        Please do a review ASAP! I am dying for something by someone, who is more versed in Native American and frontier history, than my Hungarian behind.

        I wouldn’t be so upset about this film, if the filmmakers knew the Predator lore and didn’t boast about how incredibly historically accurate it is for a sci-fi horror picture. They even paid for a 2000+ word National Geographic puff piece. Don’t get me wrong, the setting was a tremendous idea, but the result was a completely mediocre film. Exactly like Predators, the one set on the game reserve planet, where the cast was incredibly bland. I still think Prey and Predators share the bronze medal for the best films of the franchise, but 1 and 2 are leagues above them.

        Reply
        • JimC says

          August 8, 2022 at 5:38 am

          Will do. Later this week.

          Reply

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