User reviews

Like many, I would "obtain" this movie through any means necessary due to a love of everything Predator. This however is something "special" IMO. Obviously the staff cared enough about it to make it not only above average but damn great for a short. Kudos to the staff; this will remain in my Aliens,Predator Archive for eternity (as long as my NAS survives).

I happened to come across "Predator: Dark Ages" by sheer random luck and decided to give it a chance. And it blew me away. This short film is well worth a place in the official "Predator" franchise.

Everything about it was up to par with a Hollywood production. The production and editing level was just fantastic and very professional. The actors did a really good job and the props and costumes were great. Well, aside from the Freya character, who was essentially just a female non-elven version of Legolas. I had never expected this kind of production value from a fan-made project. Even down to the music, everything was just spot on. Director James Bushe really captured the essence of the "Predator" universe.

The acting in "Predator: Dark Ages" was up there on the same high level as the rest of the movie. And it was refreshing with a bunch of new faces. And I really applaud their work here.

This unofficial "Predator" movie was an amazingly great surprise, and I can do nothing but recommend it to all who enjoy the official "Predator" movies in all their forms and variety.

"Predator: Dark Ages" lands a solid seven out of ten stars rating from me.

I was expecting less from this. But it really helps you relive the classic Predator legacy. The medieval time setting is very creative, interesting. No plot holes. No time-waste. It really matches high budgets. The producers put in very good effects, props and money into this. To the point, precise. Even the character development (in this small span of screen-time) is done nicely. The Predator is in it's complete originality. The sounds effects, the background music, editing, dialogue is all top-notch. The characters are strong for a short-film. Memorable. The ambiance is very nicely done.

If it were longer and a full-feature film, it can expect a lot of praise. Well done!

I really enjoyed this quick little movie!

I assumed it was going to appear low-budget or have that horrible CGI that ruins so many movies but it was very nicely done and I even caught myself impressed that something so short could be done so well.

As said, my only complaint is that it ended.

Its 25 minutes. What do you have to lose?

If you like the Predator storyline than you will like this. It is 'what if Predator came to fight Knights instead of Army men or the Police" in a nutshell.

Wait. What? You insist I add 10 lines?! Does this count as a line or is it too short? "Go see/watch/rent this movie somehow that you have access to" Its really good! You'll dig it....? Is that 10 lines yet?

First off, this is a well put together fan movie. I'd say predator fans would be satisfied. It plays very safe; so it does rip off the previous movie's though. However, for a fan movie, this is incredibly well made. The acting is solid and the script is good. The action is well directed and the score and effects are in line. I actually want this to be made into a proper Hollywood movie!

So what we have here is a short film funded by kickstarter. It explores the idea of medieval knights fighting the Predator.

This is an amazing little movie that uses a lot of classic movie making techniques rather than piles of special effects to tell the story and set the seen. The special effects that are used a flawless.

The story telling and character development are both minimal but effective. We know who the characters are and their nature through efficient story telling. The movie could have easily been padded with more on that.

I expect that the franchise owners in Hollywood are already looking to make a full blown production of this concept, but this will always be in fans minds.

Awful, pathetic, cheap, and totally boring is what I expected this to be. I was very pleasantly surprised to find the opposite was true. I am a fan of some of the Predator films. I loved the original with Arnold. The second was awful. Alien Vs. Predator was awesome, but AVP2 sucked. Predators with Adrien Brody was - IMO - boring and could've been much better. This movie, Predator-Dark Ages, lifted the series up, even though it's fan-made.

It clocks in at 27 minutes with credits. It has a very professional look and feel to it. Unlike many fan-made, indie movies, this had good actors and what looked like good production value.

The special effects were good, but there weren't that many. There wouldn't be, since it takes place in what looks like the 1100-1300 era.

The movie got right to the action without wasting time on anything boring. The ending was a bit of a surprise, but I won't spoil it.

I'm guessing this was low-budget, but I tend to think that whenever a studio didn't produce and distribute it. Don't let that scare you. As I said earlier, it has the look, feel, acting, and production value of a studio-released film.

I gave this an 7-star rating because of my surprise at how well it turned out. I highly recommend if you like the Predator films.

As if crusades, plagues, famine and mud weren't enough, the poor people of medieval Europe now have to deal with one of sci-fi's most chillingly endearing creations: a near-invisible Rastafarian alien warrior who hunts worthy prey for sport. A posse of knights and warriors is hastily assembled to deal with this menace, but they are going to have to learn to trust each other first. This 30 minute Kickstarter-funded fan film drew me in with its technical excellence, surprised me by packing a sincere and coherent emotional punch, and left me eager to see the movie expanded onto the big screen.

I should probably disclose that I am a huge fan of the first Predator (1987) which I think is one of the best films ever made in terms of its ability to transition seamlessly between genres and take the best parts from each one. It started as a gung-ho action flick, turned unexpectedly into a paranoid, nerve-shredding Vietnam war movie, and ended up as a highly effective sci-fi horror film. Predator 2 (1990) was a worthy addition to the series, although it was noticeably lighter in tone than the first film, and towards the end I felt that it was almost being played for laughs. Alien vs Predator is not worth mentioning. Predators (2010) was better than I had expected, but perhaps suffered from too many new ideas, like having multiple Predator races.

From the first minute through to the last, Dark Ages felt professional through and through. The medieval setting was a good move, and worked well with the limited budget (can you imagine trying to create a futuristic setting with the same money?) It also surprised me by consistently hitting the same emotional notes that the first Predator managed to hit. Camaraderie, brotherhood, fear, horror, and facing one's death with honour.

Using Alan Silvestri's original soundtrack - one of the best and most original scores ever made - as a basis to start composing the music was a very good decision, and helped establish a similar feel to the first Predator.

The movie continues playing to the strengths of the first Predator by creating approximate equivalents to its most memorable characters. Obviously, the main knight, Thomas (Adrian Bouchet) is the Arnie stand-in. More interesting is the Moorish sidekick Sied (Amed Hashimi) who has a difficult job to do as nobody trusts him, but he has vital information about the beast that they are hunting. In this sense, he has to do the jobs of both the characters of Dillon and Anna in the original. Not only that, but as the "new guy" to the team, combined with his diminutive stature and inexperience in combat, he becomes the audience surrogate as well. By the film's conclusion, he's become the unlikely hero. As an actor, Hashimi had a lot to pull off here, and I look forward to seeing him in action again.

Also notable is the elf-like archer Freya (Sabine Crossen) who is a great screen presence with her cold, steely, detached demeanour and a refreshing lack of dependence on male characters to let her kick ass in her own style.

Dark Ages wisely follows the format established by guy-friendly films such as the original Predator and 300 by not wasting time setting up characters with long, complex backstories. Strong, simple characterisations are used, and we can tell a surprising amount about each player by simple things like how they stand, walk and speak. The quality of the film's storyboarding, framing and editing really shines here.

Moving the action to medieval Europe made a surprising amount of sense in the context of a Predator movie. They hunt for sport, after all, they enjoy putting themselves on an equal footing to their quarry to make it a challenge, and it follows that battling foes armed with swords, shields and some rudimentary bows and arrows makes for an entertainingly balanced brawl. The referencing of the various real wars and factions of the medieval era helped to establish the world, and make the characters and their motivations much more realistic.

The action was very well done too. The director and fight choreographers show skill way above what we would expect in terms of helping the audience see who is swinging what at who. And yet it never feels too overly-balletic either, a trap that the later Star Wars and Matrix films fell into.

In conclusion, this was a very entertaining movie in of itself, and also made a coherent and self-evident case that this could easily be developed into a full Hollywood movie. In today's heavily franchise- based world, execs must surely be looking for a way to update the Predator universe, and this could be the best way to do it.

Somewhat foolishly I came in to this film thinking I was going to be watching an official follow up to the original PREDATOR franchise . I know what you're thinking - how can anyone be that naïve ? and perhaps I should defend myself by saying the franchise probably died as far back as he second film and there's very little mileage in the concept of a hunter alien visiting Earth to do mortal battle with the planet's warrior caste so you can imagine almost 30 years after the series started we'd now be getting the latest film released straight to DVD . I didn't imagine PREDATOR DARK AGES was going to be a fan film

To be fair the production team have made a impressive fan film . The story itself is a little bit simplistic . A Saracan from the Middle East is conscripted in to helping some Templar knights in Europe to track down a demon that has been stalking the land .. There's not a lot of plot but it doesn't need to be since there's only a run time of half an hour and the brevity works in its favour . That said most of the strength comes from the directing , acting , musical score and perhaps most impressively cinematography . There's a striking scene where the Predator is in silhouette against the Sun and despite being relatively amateurish it's relatively more impressive than a lot of blockbusters you'll see . Well done everyone involved

This is the second short I see of predator and it's just gets better, well paced, well acted, I didn't mind the CGI cause I understand they are on a budget so things had its limits but besides that a great tale. It used its elements perfectly the director knows how a Predator movie works and what to do.

This is a great example of a short movie well made and making it with such an iconic character as Predator it makes for a great premise, I hope they make others shorts with predators threw time, and the waited story about the gun in the second movie.

Give it a watch it's worth the 27 minutes.

Very good idea, very dull realisation. This movie suffers from the same symptoms almost every Hollywood kind of movies has - it looks like a box of candies with all the candies eaten long time ago. Character setup is poorly done, they are boring templates not a persons we can relate to. If someone is really a warrior all his life, he would cut down a Predator from the movie in 2 or 3 swings of a sword, especially with a such poor armor on Predator... and that would be nice opportunity to summon into the story some better Predator warrior and to see a true fight. It would be nice to see some martial arts and scientific experts to help in making these duels less naive. Anyway, this movie isn't any worse than Predators (2010).

From my understanding this movie was made on barely any budget as a fan film and is not intended to make money. So i would say they did a very good job with what they had. Sure the whole thing is filmed in some generic forest and majority of it in daylight, but it work very well and the material its based on was also mostly shot in the day.

Having to work with a small budget mean that they couldn't go too crazy on the kills but they are filmed cleaverly in my opinion. In a way it does not look cheap and silly like it could have.

Acting overall was fine as well.

Now the only issue i had with the movie was the creature itself. Altough the costume is decent looking (but does not look as great as in the Hollywood movies), the actor who portray it is way too small. Ill admit i am not deep into Predator lore from comics or else, as i stick mostly to the movies, so maybe some individuals of their race are shorter just like us humans, but in the movies they are always portrayed as very tall, bulky, making a guy like Arnold look small. Here the creature is clearly not tall enough and does not look that bulky either. But hey im guessing they had to work with what they had. Its not a huge deal but it is noticeable.

Overall for a roughly 30 minutes fan film, i had fun so it does the job fine enough. I don't know exactly how high was the budget but that they managed to do such a polished movie as a fan film is something worth admiring.

Only found out this fan movie existed after someone recommended it from the comment section of the latest predator trailer coming up this year.

It's an alright quick film with a good budget setting, props/costumes look great and the acting is not distracting at all. These guys were amateurs? That was impressive.

The only issue were the team's reaction to the creature, it's like they saw a ghost and not even their fighting instincts kicked in.. it's just odd for 'experienced' killers. The final fight scene could've used some work too, it's like the protagonist is drunk or something, a better fight scene choreography would've made this film much much better.

As others have said the only negative thing I found with this short is that it was too short I wish it had been a full length feature.

The people involved in this had a great idea going in the actors were very believable, the story was great showing the Predators have been around for a very very long time hunting earth's best. The effects were well done, the story was set-up real well the costumes were perfect. The fight scenes were really well done. Take this and run with it a great idea to do Predator movies starting here and going throughout the ages might be the best way to bring this awesome franchise back to life.

I hope to see them do more Predator features and starting with this one would not be a bad idea.... good show, great short.

This swords and sci-fi short is very impressive for what it is - an independent, crowd funded flick set in Predieval (TM) period, done on a minimal budget in a short turnaround time.

The biggest problem IS that it isn't long enough, but that is more down to the fact that it would have been able to flesh out the characters a bit more. It was never really going to happen in a sub 30 minute film, and an extra 20 minutes might have helped it, and potentially could be used as a decent pilot episode for a series,, were it not unofficial!

Another problem with it was the script, or rather, the dialog. The the plot was not exactly original, and had a couple of rather hackneyed plot and characterisation devices, such as 'let's split up... ' , an almost inevitable 'christian vs muslim' thread and a little mod to equality that seemed a little forced, it was to the point. But to achieve this, the dialogue seemed a little forced, and as trying to prove it's medieval cred.

A little ( or a lot!) more research into the period, and more fluid, dynamic dialogue would have raised my score an extra 1- 2 stars, since there was very little to fault in the sparse but effective, even nostalgic effects. Solidly done, as were the fight scenes. Well, scene.

The director made good use of the limited budget on locations, being shot entirely in woods / the countryside save one scene shot in a pretty convincing but er... compact and bijou... encampment. Obviously such constraints need to be made, but good use of sweeping ariel shots give a sense of scale, and the locations and cinematography belie the fact that this was shot for the price of a Danny Glover lookalike for your childs party. Props and costumes were very good - minimal, as they would have been - but adequate.

I haven't said much about the acting, and that's because it didn't strike me as much as the other things did. It is adequate. Good, even, given the dialogue they had to work with. With a better scriptwriter, and an extra 20 minutes, this could have been a very proficient pilot for a series. *For <$6000! They could film a whole series of this for the cost of even an average Netflix pilot! :)

I enjoyed it. I was pretty much mistaken in my suspicion that a fan- flic was going to be low- budget- awful, and i feel that i can rate this short against major Hollywood releases , and still feel fair in giving it a solid 6. Imagine what they could do with a even a Netflix budget!

I enjoyed this short from the very start until the very end. The only issue I had with Predator was that it was very short but it is a short which I understand. I Liked the way the director and his team brought back the Predator to the days of the Crusade as it could still be a continuum to the Predator movie. I wish it would of been longer and for us to get to know all the characters backgrounds and understood them more. Hope this can be done into a full movie with the same actors and actresses and well done to all the team who done this short and such a budget.

A great short movie.

Highly recommend it =)

This 27 minutes long independent fan film stands shoulder to shoulder with the original franchise and it is totally unbelievable what they did without the support of high budget studios. Smart choice of epoch made it possible to have very convincing scenery and costumes with minimal expenses. The movie is short, fast, and without any introduction or background story, it puts us straight to the action, and still succeeds to show pretty strong characterization. Without any doubt the best fan film I have ever seen.

8/10

I had my doubts at first, but got into it really fast.

Very good casting, production value, environments, mood, music, props, etc ... I quickly forgot I was looking at a rather low budget movie. In fact, I've seen plenty of movies with far bigger budgets that were just awful and didn't feel anywhere near as good as this short one.

Just imagine what these guys could do with a bigger budget.

Make it happen!

I just wish I had come across it during the crowdfunding phase. As a huge predator fan, I would have loved to back it. And I'm sure there are many other fans like me who feel the same.

I was so impressed how well made this movie is. It is far better than the last big budget movie. This is everything a Hollywood made Predator movie should have been.