Predator
Entry updated 9 January 2023. Tagged: Film.
Film (1987). Amercent/American Entertainment/Twentieth Century Fox. Directed by John McTiernan. Written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas. Cast includes Elpidia Carrillo, Bill Duke, Kevin Peter Hall, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers. 106 minutes. Colour.
A special-forces group undertaking a commando-style rescue mission in South America clashes bloodily with guerrillas and then very much more bloodily with the Predator: an intelligent Alien (Hall) that can bend light to make itself almost invisible (see Invisibility). The alien picks them off one by one, losing only to the Schwarzenegger character, by now reduced to primitive combat. The blend of the jungle-warfare (or Vietnam) scenario with the alien-Invasion genre is potentially interesting, but the treatment follows a wholly predictable pattern. Moreover, on the evidence presented, the alien should have won. A possible influence is the rather similar Without Warning (1980), in which the outsize actor Hall also played an alien hunter stalking human prey on Earth. The film was novelized as Predator (1987) by Paul Monette.
The sequels are Predator 2 (1990) and Predators (2010). A joint franchise of Alien (1979) and Predator spinoffs emerged via Comics, leading to novel ties by various authors including David Bischoff, Marc A Cerasini, Chris Claremont and Steve Perry; the game Aliens Versus Predator (1999); and the films AVP Alien vs Predator (2004) and AVPR Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007). [PN/DRL]
see also: Monster Movies.
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