Previous to its launch a number of days in the past, few would have predicted that the brand new Predator film, Prey, was more likely to seize the zeitgeist, by no means thoughts the hearts of Movie Twitter. Opinions had been optimistic, however this was nonetheless a mid-budget, pared-down franchise replace that was going straight to streaming on Hulu whereas all of the Hollywood visitors, impressed by a resurgent field workplace, was going the opposite means.

And but, right here was revered arthouse filmmaker Barry Jenkins, spending his Saturday night time breathlessly live-tweeting his means by way of watching the brand new movie, heaping reward on it and its director Dan Trachtenberg. “I imply she beat him DOWN — lady is TUFF,” he enthused after one combat scene that includes the heroine, Comanche hunter Naru (Amber Midthunder). “It is a lean, imply, spectacular little bit of filmmaking. The craft is on POINT,” tweeted Jenkins, who is aware of what he’s speaking about. The combat choreography was “impeccable.” The movie’s themes may be “a visceral style excavation of manifest future.” Jenkins signed off: in case you “like visceral, superior ass movies you REALLY ought to watch PREY, licensed hype.”

He wasn’t alone. Throughout social media, movie followers had been expressing shock at simply how good the movie was, and frustration that they hadn’t been in a position to see it on the large display. Prey actually appears to have struck a chord. This was stunning for a movie sequence that, whereas remaining reliably entertaining, has struggled to recapture the favored creativeness after the outstanding Predator broke out in 1987. Most Predator sequels have been content material to wallow of their trashy area of interest, whereas the largest swing, 2018’s The Predator, was additionally the largest miss. What went proper this time?

Photograph: David Bukach/twentieth Century Studios

Maybe these low expectations had been key — not simply on the viewers’s half, however on the studio’s, too. Ambivalence at new franchise proprietor Disney about how in style Predator actually is could also be one motive behind Prey’s streaming debut. However it should even have considerably lessened the stress on the movie, at a second when Hollywood bosses are notably obsessive about wringing each final drop of potential from each franchise on their books. The result’s that Trachtenberg acquired to make a movie that stands in stark and refreshing distinction to nearly all of present franchise fare.

In contrast to, say, Jurassic World Dominion, Prey doesn’t need to bear the burdens that include an unlimited funds, a globe-trotting shoot, a sprawling solid that features all of the lead characters from two distinct sub-series, or a have to persistently increase the stakes from one set-piece to the following. It doesn’t need to discover a residence for itself inside lore that has constructed up over a long time, like layers of silt. It doesn’t need to squeeze in crossover cameos on the behest of universe-building executives.

With all these pressures and concerns to accommodate, the destiny of many franchise movies, from Incredible Beasts: The Secrets and techniques of Dumbledore to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, has been convoluted storytelling, disorganized manufacturing, sober self-mythologizing, and overlong operating occasions. It’s typically onerous, when watching these bloated productions, to keep in mind that most of those sequence started as simple, escapist romps.

Photograph: twentieth Century Studios

Against this, Prey is the picture of its inspiration: a taut, 100-minute style movie that takes a easy idea and executes it sparingly, however with relentless objective. The stroke of genius of Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison is to make Prey a prequel, however one set at such a take away from the unique Predator — 268 years earlier than — that it successfully provides them a clean slate. Add in the truth that Predator lore is hardly overdeveloped within the first place, and you’ve got a movie that’s free to be itself, unencumbered by the necessity to reckon with, or fill out, any backstory.

Prey breathes with the area so lots of its trendy sci-fi and motion friends lack. Its cleanly shot, sharply edited motion scenes are matched by the clearly described beats of Naru’s quest to show herself a hunter, and interpolated with contemplative touring pictures taking in a lovely wilderness. There isn’t a B-plot. There’s no exposition, as a result of there’s actually no plot to show; one thing is on the market, killing, and it have to be stopped. There’s even slightly room to broaden the thematic scope of the Predator universe slightly, because the alien hunter’s sport is contrasted with the still-vital meals chains of the American wilderness, and with the technologically powered, brutal exploitation of one other form of alien invader: the white man.

This type of resourceful model extension shouldn’t be new territory for Trachtenberg, who one way or the other remodeled a claustrophobic psychological thriller script right into a sequel to a smash-hit monster film, with out betraying its bottled B-movie allure, in 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane. The enjoyable and ingenuity of that movie lay in how Trachtenberg would discover a method to work the earlier title into the brand new one. With Prey, he’s achieved a mirror-image feat: ridding the brand new movie of all the luggage of a contemporary movie franchise, as much as and together with its title. All that’s left is its uncooked, ruthless spirit.