Last Updated on June 9, 2025 by Angel Melanson
After four installments of inconsistent quality and two crossovers with the Alien franchise, Dan Trachtenberg’s 2022 Prey introduced a promising idea into the Predator film series: what if it told a story that was plenty interesting on its own, but then dropped one of its extraterrestrial weekend-warrior hunters into the middle of it? Trachtenberg’s success both creatively and commercially with the 1700s-set chapter starring Amber Midthunder has now paved the way for two follow-ups, both of which he is directing: the live-action Badlands, starring Elle Fanning, arrives in November 2025, but first comes an animated anthology of sorts cowritten by Micho Robert Rutare and co-directed by Josh Wassung.
Liberated from cost or logistical concerns by the limitless canvas of animation, Killer of Killers tells three stories that converge into a single epic narrative that not only feels satisfyingly cohesive but further hints at exciting possibilities within the larger Predator universe.
Set in 841 A.D., “The Shield” opens the film with the story of a Viking warrior, Ursa (Lindsay LaVanchy), who attempts to prepare her young son for leadership of their warrior clan by enlisting him to help exact revenge upon the man who killed her own father while she was just a child. In “The Sword,” which takes place in feudal Japan, twin brothers Kenji and Kyoshi (both played by Louis Ozawa) are pitted against one another by their father for the opportunity to succeed him as lord of the province. Decades later, they rekindle their battle upon their father’s death, only to discover that an invisible but deadly entity has its own designs on challenging them.
Next, “The Bullet,” set in 1942, follows a young mechanic named Torres (Rick Gonzalez) who dreams of becoming a pilot. Despite enlisting in the military to fight during WWII, he’s again relegated to the role of repairman — this time for broken planes. But when several of his comrades are downed by a mysterious, unseen opponent, he seizes on an opportunity to join the fray, only to discover that what he and his fellow pilots are facing is bigger and more deadly than anticipated.
Exactly how these three events in different eras come together is one of a handful of larger canonical elements the film does not fully explain. Even so, Killer of Killers uses these different scenarios to showcase the quick-thinking resourcefulness of the human heroes before presenting them with a new challenge — spoiling as little as possible, fighting in a location that proves, uh, alien to them all. Yet the appeal is great enough in teaming up a Viking warrior, a ninja and a WWII fighter pilot that audiences likely won’t be distracted by undefined time travel logistics that make it all possible. In fact, it’s a smaller component of the mythology of the extraterrestrial species known as “Yautja” than their impulse to look for the universe’s baddest of asses (hence, “Killer of Killers”) to prove their own mettle.
That said — and whether or not it bothers other viewers — the thought that does linger during each of these vignettes is just how disproportionate an advantage the Yautja have over pretty much any of their potential adversaries. From the days of Arnold Schwarzenegger facing off against them in 1987, their size, weapons and technology outclass virtually every human counterpart, making the aliens’ galactic quests seem more than a little bit like rich-kid safaris where their potential prey are pre-injured to increase the Yautjas’ chances of coming back with a trophy.
Regardless, the animation is rich, detailed and robust, continuing to evidence the overnight and seemingly ubiquitous impact of the hand-drawn animation style of the Spider-Verse films where stray lines and sketch marks overlap with clearly-defined characters and shapes. (One can’t help imagine what a true anthology might look like, with different animation styles tailored to each era or story.)
If the line isn’t quite straight from Torres’ piloting daydreams to facing off against an alien spaceship (a transition the film makes by skillfully balancing wish fulfillment and comedic incredulity), he’s an effective proxy for viewers as he makes sense of an increasingly inexplicable sequence of events. Meanwhile, Ursa and Kenji are (immediately) fiercely impressive fighters, and as the titles of the chapters suggest, each back story explores and utilizes a different skill set that makes their Yautja showdown unique and interesting.
If Prey was the proof of concept for an anthological direction for the Predator franchise, Trachtenberg’s animated feature shows how well it could work by both setting up a larger, interconnected universe and then hinting at how that universe could allow for spinoffs and independent adventures. (To be fair, the original Predator and its sequel sort of function that way, but do so less conspicuously — or intentionally — than now.) What Killer of Killers does not do, however, is make the Yautja much more interesting than they already were.
What’s the larger purpose of these rituals? Do all of them want to take part in it? What is their society like that it seems based exclusively around this singular rite of passage? Where the Alien films have built a commercially successful franchise around different iterations of a haunted house movie, these films — well, until now — have been formulaic action-adventures but not particularly distinctive. (Even the name of the creatures came from a spinoff comic book series, which may account for why it’s unfamiliar.)
Yet Trachtenberg is on the right track, and an open ending for this film lets him and other filmmakers flesh out this mythology, as well as tell engaging single-serving stories where the Yautja travel the universe to meet interesting and stimulating people from ancient cultures and then kill them. Building on the foundation of Prey, Killer of Killers establishes the template that this series should follow: It supplies connective tissue, but more than that it offers options. And in franchise filmmaking, it’s always a win when viewers aren’t just satisfied with a story, but excited to see where the next one will go.
