Since 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg released his addition to the Predator franchise, Prey, in 2022 on Hulu, audiences have grown ever more hungry for new Predator stories. Sure, audiences have four other films to explore, plus two Alien crossovers, but what’s been missing for a lot of folks have been explorations in time periods and locations beyond the present Earth (though that is less of a variable with Predators (2010)). Led by Amber Midthunder (Novocaine), Prey not only tied neatly into the end of Predator 2 (1990), it beautifully presented a Predator succeeding (to a point) in the Comanche Nation of 1719, leaving audiences wanting even more time-slipped tales. Enter Predator: Killer of Killers, an animated anthology series directed by Trachtenberg and animation studio The Third Floor’s Josh Wassung which premiered at Tribeca 2025 in the Escape from Tribeca section ahead of a wider release on Hulu, granting audiences exactly what they’ve been dying to see: Predators challenging humans in different times and cultures. With Predator: Killer of Killers, animation provides brand-new ways for Predators to hunt and these stories do a lot more than let the blood flow.
A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
A Viking Queen from the 7th century, a Japanese shinobi from the 17th century, and an American World War II pilot from the 20th century take center stage as each is on a specific personal mission and each unwittingly crosses paths with a violent hunter. Across time, these stories present distinctly violent altercations which imply Earth has been a hunting ground for longer than humanity realizes. Worse, that these individual engagements are merely a stepping stone toward something else that won’t quit until blood pours and the heart stops.
Predator: Killer of Killers is a film that no one knew was coming. It was reportedly conceived and created in secret while Trachtenberg was developing the upcoming theatrical release Predator: Badlands (2025). Don’t mistake this to mean that the film is all style and no substance, trying to milk the current popularity of Weyland-Yutani Corporation actions. Like the films before it, Killer of Killers stands alone while creating more connective tissue for future stories to possibly explore. For a specific non-spoiler example, consider the appearance of the flintlock pistol Midthunder’s Naru acquires, which has been confirmed to be the same one that Danny Glover’s Lt. Harrigan receives at the end of Predator 2. It wasn’t a necessary easter egg, but it creates a connection between the prequel adventure and the 1990 release. Prey screenwriter Patrick Aison (Predator: Badlands) didn’t need to include it in the script and Trachtenberg certainly didn’t need to make this cannon in Killer of Killers, however, by doing so, the audience is rewarded with a fun note that also serves to create a question about the journey of this pistol. Through the slow reveal throughout screenwriter Micho Robert Rutare’s (Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus) narrative, similar answers are offered which raise brand-new and exciting questions, both for this specific tale and for any possible future stories. Being an anthology empowers Trachtenberg to play with storytelling approaches between the somewhat mythological Viking tale, the mostly dialogue-absent Japanese portion, and the war picture sensibilities of the WWII fighter pilot segment. This grants Trachtenberg the ability to play within the lines of the expected narrative track established by the initial films: characters on a mission of their own find themselves immediately hunted by a fierce, technologically advanced stalker upon the perceived completion of their task. The script is quite repetitious in this way, making it all the more important how the anthology structure uplifts expectations.
A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
In terms of the animation itself, according to the official The Third Floor website, Killer of Killers is the first fully-animated feature they’ve completed. The animation style common across all the stories in the anthology is that of game series Borderlands meets DreamWorks Pictures’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), creating a look that’s grounded yet clearly otherworldly. The characters are weighted in their design, given small hints of detail like brush strokes akin to cell shading, but more controlled. This enables the characters to appear dynamic and realized while moving around the 2D spaces, so that aspects like clothes and weapons stand out further upon the character frame. Notably, each portion of the anthology possesses its own visual language with the portion set in Japan being a tad more poetic and the World War II segment more grounded, thereby allowing the opening Viking tale to mix the two. This translates to sequences that feel totally independent of the others, even as the narrative slowly reveals a significant connection. It’s worth noting that the Viking sequence contains a seamlessly shot single-track shot that contains one of the best stunt sequences in the Predator franchise, both for its blocking as characters move in-and-out of frame as the camera follows Viking Queen Ursa (voiced by Lindsay LaVanchy) and for the use of weapons to a truly devastating effect. The most important tenant of stunt work is that it must advance the characters and this scene does precisely that in conveying Ursa’s convergence of internal and external motivations. Likewise, and this is extremely complimentary, in the third segment focusing on wannabe fighter pilot Torres (voiced by Rick Gonzalez), the aerial combat is captured in a way that evokes Serenity (2005) and its climatic dogfight in blocking and cinematography. One can certainly appreciate the brutality typical within a live-action Predator adventure, but there’s nothing like the freedom that animation provides, which Rutare took absolute carte blanche with in crafting the road map that The Third Floor would utilize to bring these tales to life. We’re talking about beheadings via serrated shield, bifurcation by spear, and compaction by net — things that just resonate differently with audiences when they can be presented without massive concern for practical effect construction or CG budgets.
A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
For the non-OGs, Predator began as an individual film with director John McTiernan’s 1987 Predator and, by the time of Predator 2’s release, the first four-issue run of Dark Horse Comics’s Predator, also known as Predator: Concrete Jungle, had completed, carrying forward the initial film’s narrative in printed format. This would not be the only comic to run or the only time that any of the Predator characters would stray from the celluloid medium as video games and novels would also release, feeding audiences’ hunger for the Yautja whom make up one portion of the Predator mythology. A release of animated anthology stories not only feels like a natural extension of the prior tales told, it frankly feels like it should have arrived sooner. Delightfully, then, not only does Killer of Killers embrace its medium, it does so with absolute gusto, imbuing each individual tale with a specific flair and internal challenge all while coating it with a consistent visual style of 3D and 2D animation. Given the way some online chatter has gone since the character reveal for the upcoming live-action Predator: Badlands, also directed by Trachtenberg, it feels important to point out that not only have the Predator stories carried on in different media formats, but that, within each of them, the look of each Predator was uniquely designed to incorporate personalized aspects of the hunter even while maintaining certain specific Yautja characteristics.
A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
This translates to one hunter being designed like a refrigerator, huge and bulky, armed with the usual armaments and one specialty weapon. The ferocity remains, even if his size comes off as comparatively outlandish, making this Predator a monster in the fictional sense for the group of Vikings to overcome. Another Predator is more lithe and agile, appropriately designed to blend in with 17th century Japan. Finally, and I’m sure this reviewer won’t be alone in thinking it, but the character design for the World War II segment looks strangely more like Galaxy Quest’s Sarris (Robin Sachs) than any other Predator we’ve seen before, but it makes the lethality of the character no less reduced by the comparison. Though each one clearly fits in with the Yautja aesthetic first created in Predator, these Predators stand out by possessing looks unique to their parts of the anthology. To try to reduce one by implying that they don’t look like any of the others is to miss the point that the Predators are a species of hunters who share visual traits like any other race, yet are not uniform. Certainly not any more uniform than the Terrans they hunt in the current feature-length releases.
While there’s a general feeling that anything released on streaming likely wouldn’t work with a theatrical release (the recent Apple TV+ adventure Fountain of Youth is getting slagged horribly for its seeming second-screen feel), there’s nothing about Killer of Killers that doesn’t exude *big screen*. Like Prey before it, the feature film is unconventional and that tends to make some studios and distributors balk when they should hold firm. Something tells me that those who attend the lone Killer of Killers screening at Tribeca will feel appropriately smug as everyone else is relegated to whatever home system they have to enjoy this via Hulu. Perhaps, one day, a repository screening of Prey will occur and they’ll be able to bring Killer of Killers along with it because, as much as Midthunder’s adventure deserves a big screen viewing, so would this animated anthology positively rip in certain sequences. Until then, if Killer of Killers continues to be viewed as an experiment, may Trachtenberg be able to make several more until it all comes together in a cornucopia of violence. Praise Sif!
Screening during Tribeca Film Festival 2025.
Available on Hulu June 6th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Tribeca Film Festival Predator: Killer of Killers webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews, streaming
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