Predators
2023 · 18m · United Kingdom
Directed by Jack King
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
A paranoid character study of the dark side of childhood. A group of kids' lives are irrevocably changed when they discover a dangerous predator living in the woods.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise reads like every after-school-special warning about stranger danger, but King seems more interested in the kids' complicity and moral fog than in the obvious villain—which is genuinely unsettling in a way that most 'dark coming-of-age' shorts aren't brave enough to attempt.
There's a deliberate restraint here that recalls the psychological tension of Haneke or early Yorgos Lanthimos—the film trusts formal control and spatial composition over sensationalism, positioning itself within a lineage of art cinema that weaponizes what it *doesn't* show.
What lifts this beyond its premise is King's decision to keep the predator almost abstractly threatening rather than concrete—the real filmmaking move is letting the kids' fear and curiosity do the heavy lifting, which forces everything onto performance and editing rhythm rather than plot mechanics.
Festivals
- BFI London Film Festival 2023
- Leeds International Film Festival 2023
- London Critics Circle 2023, Nomination