Predator: Killer of Killers streaming on Hulu

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After the success of Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey (2022), the most recent entry in the Predator franchise, Disney decided to make him the creative head of the series. This year, Trachtenberg is credited as director of two Predator films: the live-action Predator: Badlands, set to release theatrically in November, and the animated anthology film Predator: Killer of Killers, which debuts June 6 on Hulu.

Trachtenberg’s first foray into animation, with help from codirector Joshua Wassung, proves that Disney’s bet has paid off. Killer of Killers delivers on the promise of alien yautja fighting some of human history’s greatest warriors with brilliantly choreographed and executed action. We see alien hunters engage a Viking raider in 841, a ninja and samurai brother in 1629, and an American squadron of fighter pilots in 1942.

It takes a bit in each segment for the yautja to engage the humans, allowing for surprisingly resonant if not perfectly scripted moments of family drama and some introductory human-on-human violence. That less-than-stellar writing makes the feudal Japan section shine brighter than the others, as it’s almost entirely dialogue-free except for a few words at the start and close (and the fact that it’s about ninjas and samurai also just ups its cool factor). But once the fighting begins, no matter the combatants or dialogue, Killer of Killers is a joy to watch. 

The animation, which blends 2D and 3D elements in a style directly inspired by Netflix’s Arcane, is more interesting than anything else. It sometimes looks cheap and awkward, and the most eye-popping aspects are often the purely 2D elements, especially the fires, which are beautiful throughout. Yet the 3D is justified by the “camera moves” within the animated world that add a real dynamism to the action sequences, particularly the dogfights of the World War II segment.