03. Predator (1987)

Like many of the movies on this list, John McTiernan’s Predator has spawned several sequels including a cross-franchise franchise with Alien. I like some and outright loath others but none of them hold a candle to the original. An elite commando unit, led by Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is deployed into a Central American jungle by the CIA, most notably Dillon (Carl Weathers), under false pretenses and find themselves hunted and picked off one by one by something in the jungle that they can’t see or track. The Predator concept originated out of a joke that Rocky Balboa had no one left to fight but E.T. somehow that grew into an alien coming down to earth to hunt badasses. Hollywood works in mysterious ways. Predator has a fairly unique feeling to it as it manages to stack its cast with action stars, body builders, professional wrestlers, and Sonny Landham (who was contractually obligated to have bodyguards at all times to protect the cast from his bar-brawling reputation) and carries out what at first seems like a standard ‘commando in the jungle’ picture and then descends into a suspenseful horror film as they are taken out one by one. The suspense works for a couple of reasons. McTiernan knows exactly what to show and how to show it to create and preserve the tension where a lesser director might have rushed in to show the alien or given short shrift to the opening mission and resulting intrigue. The beginning of the film is vital to establish that these are hardcore, stone-cold operators and they are generally able to handle any situation no matter how sideways it goes…until the alien shows up. The second stems from the first in that the commandos are the sorts of people who aren’t scared of anything and are never caught unprepared. I mean one of them is a ‘goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus’ for goodness sake. When guys like this get scared it elevates the tension with the audience too. If these guys were made up of dudes like, oh I don’t know, Adrien Brody, it would be no big deal to watch them be picked off because you sort of expect someone like that to go down like a bitch. When Jessie Ventura, former Pro Wrestler and Navy SEAL eats it, you know you are in for some shit. Predator also had some pretty badass special effects for its time and my Earth Science teacher in high school (who was also the wrestling coach) used this movie to demonstrate the bending of light. I thought it was ridiculous but I was glad to take time out of class to watch one of my favorite action movies.

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