Dan Trachtenberg makes familiar monsters interesting by changing whose trouble we follow. We like his clear action and sympathy for underdogs, though Predator: Badlands shows how easily that sympathy can take the threat out of a creature.
Fi1m perspective
A Predator who needs approval is an odd starting point for a monster film. In Predator: Badlands (2025), Dan Trachtenberg follows Dek, the runt of his clan, and pairs him with Elle Fanning’s talkative synthetic, Thia. Her company gives his struggle to prove himself somebody to matter to. We get a likeable buddy film, though anyone hoping to be frightened has reasonable grounds for complaint.
His feature debut, 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), established a knack for keeping tension going in confined spaces through careful staging and camera placement. Television work included the Black Mirror episode ‘Playtest’ (2016) and the pilot of The Boys (2019). The important turn came with Prey (2022), which approached the Predator hunt from an eighteenth-century Comanche perspective. Moving from its huntress to the creature itself in Badlands is a substantial change of allegiance, but the interest in someone trying to prove themselves remains.
Trachtenberg often keeps the camera behind or over a character’s shoulder, placing us close to the person facing danger. His regular collaborators include cinematographer Jeff Cutter, though the cutting deserves attention too. David Trachtenberg and Stefan Grube edit Badlands so that we can follow who is hitting whom. The fights stay readable, leaving us free to worry about the combatants rather than work out where they have gone.
We found ourselves caring about Dek because Trachtenberg lets us see how badly he wants approval. Patrick Aison’s screenplay, from a story by Aison and Trachtenberg, gives that feeling an overly familiar route to follow: the stages of the hero’s journey arrive plainly signposted. The friendship deserves a less predictable story. Making the Predator easier to understand also makes him less frightening.
Badlands also spends too much time connecting itself to other films, including Alien, when Dek and Thia are sufficient company. Those references distract from the pair and add lore the story does not need. We would welcome another of his monster films, preferably one that frightens us.
Biography
Dan Trachtenberg is an American director, writer and producer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1981, he graduated from Temple University. He began his career directing commercials for brands including Lexus, Nike and Coca-Cola, as well as short films and internet content. He co-hosted the podcast The Totally Rad Show and directed episodes of Ctrl+Alt+Chicken, both on Revision3.
Trachtenberg directed the 2016 Black Mirror episode 'Playtest'. His feature debut was 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), which earned a Directors Guild of America nomination for Outstanding Directing – First-Time Feature Film. He directed and co-wrote the story for Prey (2022) and the Predator films Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) and Predator: Badlands (2025). For television he directed the pilot episodes of The Boys (2019) and Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (2021), serving as executive producer on the latter.
