Predator Killer of Killers – animation gets nasty? (trailer)
Just when you thought the Predator franchise had tried everything short of setting a Yautja loose at your local Tesco, along comes Predator: Killer of Killers, a gory, globe-trotting, era-hopping animated anthology with one singular goal: to remind you that no matter how deadly you think you are, there’s always a dreadlocked alien with thermal vision and a cloaking device waiting to turn your spine into interior décor.
Dropping onto Hulu (and Disney+ for the rest of us lucky internationals) on June 6, 2025, Killer of Killers marks the eighth entry in the Predator canon—though you’d be forgiven for losing track after the third one started throwing in genetic upgrades and whatever that business was with The Predator trying to be a Marvel comedy.
But here’s the twist: Killer of Killers is animated. Not the Saturday morning cartoon kind, mind you. This is very much adult animation—the kind that comes with arterial spray, severed limbs, and brooding warriors whispering things like, “We hunt the darkness… until it hunts us.” Directed by Dan Trachtenberg (fresh off the genuinely excellent Prey) and written by Micho Robert Rutare, the film brings us three bloody tales of history’s deadliest humans squaring off against the galaxy’s most vacation-prone apex predator.
First up, a Viking raider with a bad attitude and an even worse childhood memory sets off on a revenge quest with her young son in tow—because nothing says parental bonding like slicing through a fjord full of Saxons while being stalked by a seven-foot alien with plasma cannons.
Next, we go to feudal Japan, where a ninja decides it’s time to stick his samurai brother with something sharp, all while dodging shuriken, family expectations, and presumably a cloaked alien monster who thinks katana duels make great background noise while it hunts.
And finally, in a dash of Crimson Sky meets War Is Hell, we’ve got a World War II fighter pilot who takes to the air only to discover that it’s not just the Luftwaffe up there—it’s something much, much worse. Picture a dogfight where one side has propellers and the other has shoulder-mounted lasers. Fair fight? Absolutely not. Entertaining? Undoubtedly.
Voice talent includes Lindsay LaVanchy, Louis Ozawa Changchien (no stranger to the franchise after Predators), Rick Gonzalez, and sci-fi veteran Michael Biehn, presumably because if you’re casting a grizzled warrior genre piece and you don’t call Michael Biehn, your producer’s licence should be revoked.
Visually, the animation comes courtesy of The Third Floor—the studio known for its high-end pre-viz work on everything from The Mandalorian to Avengers: Endgame. So expect something more akin to Love, Death & Robots than He-Man. From what we’ve seen of the teaser, it’s all about heavy shadows, dynamic combat, and enough decapitations to make Samurai Jack look like a CBeebies special.
What’s most exciting here at SFcrowsnest is the tone. Killer of Killers isn’t trying to be a reboot, prequel, or tonal reimagining. It’s just pure, distilled Predator chaos—dropping a monster into history’s bloodiest hotspots and letting nature take its gruesome course. This is what the franchise arguably needed all along: unhinged, unconnected stories with one rule—bring the Yautja, and let the bodies hit the jungle floor.
And make no mistake: Killer of Killers isn’t about humanity winning. It’s about watching the best warriors of every era fight like hell… and still come up short against the galaxy’s most terrifying trophy collector.
So sharpen your axes, oil your katana, and check your altimeter—because Predator is back, and this time it’s animated, angry, and absolutely not for the squeamish.
Now that’s what we call educational programming.
