Confident that the Predator franchise is finally back on track, executives at 20th Century Studios greenlit not just one but two new movies for release in 2025, both shepherded by Prey director Dan Trachtenberg. The first, an animated prequel/side-story called Predator: Killer of Killers, arrived directly on Hulu streaming (as Prey had) to serve as a sort of teaser or warm-up for the theatrical release of the live-action and bigger-budget Predator: Badlands toward the end of the year.
Whether Prey would really turn out to be a new rejuvenation for the series or just a one-off success amidst a string other other failed sequels and spin-offs has been an open question since that film premiered in 2022. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that Killer of Killers answers it. The animated movie isn’t terrible, per se, but it certainly isn’t up to the standard that Prey set and it left me feeling decidedly underwhelmed.
| Title: | Predator: Killer of Killers |
| Year of Release: | 2025 |
| Directors: | Dan Trachtenberg Joshua Wassung |
| Watched On: | Hulu (via Disney+) |
Running a brisk 85 minutes, Predator: Killer of Killers takes the form of a story anthology, comprised of three new tales of humans forced into conflict with Predators – formally identified as Yautja, I believe for the first time on screen.
The first entry, called The Shield, is set in the year 84 A.D. When a Viking queen goes to war with an enemy kingdom, a watchful Predator is impressed by the viciousness with which she fights. The second story, called The Sword, skips ahead several centuries. In 1604 Japan, two brothers grow up to be rival samurai who must face off against one another. Finally, The Bullet leaps forward once again, all the way to the 1940s. Barely out of high school, a Latino kid may see his dreams of becoming a pilot come true when he’s drafted into the Navy to serve on an aircraft carrier fighting in World War II.
In each of these three vignettes, the main characters – named Ursa, Kenji, and Torres – heroically overcome their individual struggles, only to then be immediately thrust into battle with an unexpected new foe hunting the best human warriors for sport. Those who survive will only face an even worse fate, when they’re all kidnapped, plunged into cryo-sleep, and awakened together on an alien planet to serve in a gladiatorial arena, first to fight each other, and then the winner to fight the biggest, meanest, nastiest Predator of all.
To be fair to the film, Predator: Killer of Killers is rarely outright bad in too many respects. The intent of the piece, to dive deeper into the culture and motives of the Predator race, has some merit as story fodder to expand the franchise. However, it also feels very much like a sideshow distraction that will have no bearing on the other live-action movies should viewers miss this one. The characters are thinly-sketched stereotypes, the animation looks cheap, and the action scenes are extremely video game-y and frequently violate the laws of both physics and common sense. Ursa hops and bounces all over the place in battle to a ludicrous degree for a woman of her age, and a bit where Torres walks out onto the wing of his plane to repair a rudder – while in mid-flight during the thick of aerial combat, and with no one else on board to actually pilot the damned thing as he’s doing this stunt – is a serious eye-roller.
The only notable name in the voice cast is Michael Biehn as Torres’ commanding officer in the Navy. Biehn’s voice sounds much too old for the character as depicted in animation (which frankly looks to have been drawn for Jake Gyllenhaal to play).
For me, the most problematic aspect of Predator: Killer of Killers is the implication it leaves us with that even decisively defeating a Predator is only a temporary victory, and the Yautja always win out in the end. Just before the end credits roll, the movie drops a nihilistic bombshell that effectively undoes the happy ending of at least one prior franchise installment, if not all of them. I’m not a fan of that.
Video Streaming
Predator: Killer of Killers debuted on Hulu streaming on Friday, June 6, 2025. I’ve linked my Hulu account to Disney+ and generally get slightly better results watching Hulu content through that platform, but I sampled this movie both ways and didn’t see much difference in either app. I eventually settled on watching in Disney+ for convenience.
Although the movie technically streams in 4K HDR format, you should take those specs with a huge grain of salt. Nothing about the 2.39:1 image appears to have 4K worth of detail or any indication of HDR. The animation was clearly rendered in a video game engine, likely at a resolution as low as 720p before upscaling, and also with a frustratingly low frame rate that results in visible strobing and stuttering (yes, regardless of which app is used). Colors and contrast look decent enough, but nothing that especially leaps out at the eye, and all highlights fall well within SDR range. That’s not to say the movie looks terrible, but this was obviously a throwaway television production and would never have made the cut as a feature film.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, on the other hand, is loud and bassy, with lots of satisfying depth and range. Swords and blades sweep through the soundstage from front to back, and dogfighting planes whoosh all over the place between speakers.
I’ve seen at least two reports from people on social media claiming to have watched the movie with Dolby Atmos audio, but I wasn’t able to get more than 5.1 out of any of my streaming devices.
The movie has a small amount of subtitled foreign- or alien-language dialogue. All subtitles are positioned within the 2.39:1 frame and are safe for Constant Image Height display.
The Video File Blog 
I’m with you on this one, Josh…it kept bouncing between wanting to be gritty and anime nonsense.
I was hesitant about watching it, but my curiosity got the better of me. I think they need to get rid of the 12fps animation “style” too; like you said, it looked terrible. I’d like to see more visual information than less.
I can handle exaggeration up to a point, but after a while, I was rolling my eyes as well (having the Predators be 15-20 feet tall didn’t help). I wish they had built the characters up a little more – all three of them could have had much more interesting character arcs than they did, and a little more adherence to the laws of physics could have made the anthology a much involving set of stories. Also, the injury one character sustained near the end came across as gratuitous; it felt like the insertion of cheap gravitas. Sorry…I can’t think of a better way to describe it.
It’s a shame the filmmakers wasted this opportunity. It could have been something a lot more fun and engrossing if they wrote it better and used a much more realistic animation style.
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