9/12 ForReel Score | 3.5/5 Stars

Out of all the schlocky 80s-era action franchises that have come and gone, I don’t think any of them have seen a resurgence quite like Predator has. In 2022, director Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey brought Predator back to basics while reinvigorating a franchise that, save for the widely disliked The Predator from 2018, had lain dormant for far too long. Almost three years later, Trachtenberg was set to follow up Prey with Predator: Badlands in November 2025 before the surprise announcement of Predator: Killer of Killers, an animated Predator film directed entirely in secret. Following Prey’s period aesthetics of the 18th-century Comanche tribe, our favorite ugly motherfucker(s) faces off against Vikings, ninjas, and World War II pilots in a gruesome triptych that’ll have franchise fans new and old kicking their feet in delight.

Nimród Antal’s Predators gave us a little taste of factional violence against the Predator when they dropped soldiers and criminals of all ethnicities into a hunting ground in 2010. The clamor specifically came from a scene where Louis Ozawa (a katana-wielding yakuza member) faces off against a Predator in a samurai-esque swordfight, prompting hundreds of “who would win” debates that Predator: Killer of Killers finally answers. Each chapter, “The Shield,” “The Sword,” and “The Bullet,” involves a faction using their specific skills and weaponry to avoid being trophy hunted by any means necessary, with their collective differences being the textual throughline that’s wrapped up tightly by an awesome epilogue.

Being one of the rare Western animated films sporting a hefty R-rating, Killer of Killers uses its medium splendidly with action sequences that only benefit from not having a camera, practical gore effects, or a guy in a big rubber Predator costume. Animated by studio The Third Floor, the fight choreography moves fluidly and organically (particularly the swordplay in the second chapter), and the kills are some of the most creative in the entire franchise, with plenty of beheadings and bisections to go around. Outside of some gorgeous compositions and still images, the animation has that trademark post-Spider-verse framerate choppiness that varies based on the impetus of the action, featuring spectacular sequences in water, land, and air.

The best action films are the best trimmed ones, and, running at an ultra-economic 90 minutes flat, Killer of Killers is quite literally all killer, no filler. At the expense of a much thinner narrative, Killer of Killers wastes no time in getting to why you decided to watch a Predator film in the first place: all-out carnage. Trachtenberg did an excellent job of showing his knack for human destruction in Prey, particularly the scene in which the Predator cuts up a troupe of French colonizers like choice-grade sashimi, and those sensibilities translate beautifully into Killer of Killers. The thing that sets the Predators (otherwise known as the Yautja) apart from other slasher villains is their honor system, in which they only hunt prey that can fight back, and, as we all know, man is the most dangerous game.

The subtitle “Killer of Killers,” which Predators also not-so-subtly asserts, is that these characters aren’t your run-of-the-mill “innocent victims”. Whether being part of a group that kills or having blood on their own hands, the presence of the Predator forces these characters to reckon with the violence’s effect on those around them. The Predator as a character has always been allegorical to violence in some form, whether that be colonial or local, and the challenge for each protagonist is to rise against it in their own unique way. Each chapter has its respective micro-resolution before being fully wrapped up in the epilogue, which makes the prior chapters more effective upon subsequent rewatches. Even if the story isn’t the franchise’s strongest, Predator fans will surely be happy here.

On the topic of fans, Killer of Killers offers a background for the Yautja culture while maintaining a sharp focus on the human aspect of the story. It admittedly does take away some of the mystique of our antagonists, but it helps us see them as an actual alien civilization with codes and ethics rather than the typical “alien invader”. It gives a purpose as to why the Yautja have come to Earth and trophy-hunted Arnold in the jungles of Guatemala in the first place, and fleshes out the overarching story of the franchise without feeling ham-fisted in any way.

Predator: Killer of Killers gives you pretty much everything you want in a Predator anthology featuring Vikings, ninjas, and aerial combat, and is a worthy addition to a franchise that has hit a newfound stride. Out of all the decades-long horror franchises to choose from, Predator just might be my newfound favorite, and there’s never been a better time to invest. If Trachtenberg maintains this momentum, then Predator: Badlands has the potential to be the franchise’s best film yet. Between Killer of Killers and Badlands, 2025 is the year where Predator fans get to eat their cake and have it too.

Movie Review: Lean Storytelling & Stylized Violence Makes "Predator: Killer of Killers" Worth Hunting Down