Netflix’s newest addition, ‘Prey’, centres around five friends on the run from an unknown sharpshooter set to kill them.
Directed and written by Thomas Sieben, the German thriller focuses on five friends – Roman (David Kross), Albert (Hanno Koffler), Peter (Robert Finster), Vincent (Yung Ngo), and Stefan (Klaus Steinbacher), who go hiking to celebrate Roman’s ending bachelorhood as he’s about to be married.
However, a mysterious sharpshooter suddenly appears and begins targeting them, carrying an unknown vendetta. Meanwhile, Roman is facing his own personal troubles.
As one friend after another gets shot, who will be left alive to tell the tale? Why is the killer hunting them?
Prey ending explained in detail:
Personal issues
Besides being hunted by a killer, Roman and his friends are reeling from their own personal issues that set the ongoing tone of the movie.
Roman and his brother, Albert, share a frenemy relationship clouded by Albert’s selfish nature and Roman’s subservient one.
Throughout the storyline, bits and pieces of Roman’s love life with his fiancé, Lisa (Livia Matthes) is showcased. However, as the story progresses, it gives way to a darker side of their relationship.
After Albert is injured, Roman takes his phone to try and contact the police but is unsuccessful. It is then that Roman notices text messages from Lisa on his brother’s phone, which displays a nude picture of Lisa that she had sent, along with a ‘can’t wait to see you again’ message.
Roman, who is excited about his upcoming wedding, is devastated at the discovery and punches Albert when the latter tries to make an excuse out of his mistake.
The sequence, however, isn’t stretched, considering the shooter is still out to get them.
The hunt
Roman, Albert and Peter reach a deserted living space while on the run and try to take shelter in abandoned houses, but find them all locked.
Roman, in his search, finds one house which appears to be inhabited and goes in, realizing it might be the house of the shooter. As was earlier discovered, the shooter is a woman.
Roman enters the vacant house gingerly and notices pictures and children playthings — something that is seen around the forest in multiple places.
While exploring, Roman notices a laptop with a video set on pause. As he plays it, the recorded video displays two men squabbling among themselves, one holding a hunter rifle and the other recording the ongoing.
The men see a woman and a child on the bank of a river and approach them. The woman tries to shelter her child and asks them to leave, giving way to a mini scuffle that kills the child by mistake.
The gun she carries around to shoot people happens to be the one brought by the two men in the video.
Even though the overall vendetta behind the killing is left to interpretation, it can be assumed that the devastating loss of her child left her mentally unstable. She goes around killing people as an act of revenge.
Survivors
The entire plot of the movie revolves around the hunter and her prey, and it sees many deaths throughout.
The thrill begins with Vincent getting shot in the arm, their car’s tire getting punctured, and them running for their lives.
Stefan gets killed next when they approach a woman standing on the river bank for help, who turns out to be the killer. They run to a convenience store, but Vincent and the store girl get killed in the process as they try to contact the police.
The trio — Roman, Albert and Peter — find an abandoned living society where they separate. Peter encounters the woman on the road and is shot point-blank.
Albert gets shot as well but survives the impact. Roman realises that there is no respite unless she is killed. He approaches the woman from behind with a knife but is shot in the leg when she sees him.
They engage in a messy scuffle, and Roman manages to snatch the gun and throw it away. The killer realises that her fight is over, and she jumps from the cliff ending her life.
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