[MacBlayne]

Hello, again. I hope everybody is well.

A quick recap of my life as of late. Last November, I quit my job due to exhaustion. It was making me travel all over South Japan, and doing insane hours. My bosses were nice, but COVID meant I had to do so much coverage. I couldn't take it any more, and found another job that promised not to do that anymore. Well, that changed within a month. Irregular schedule, long hours, and I had to engage with of the most unpleasant elements of Japanese society (which were already on edge over Coronavirus). Well, after six months of being told to kill myself, spit on, and hit with sticks (not my work colleague or students, but regular people that I had to pass pamphlets to), I quit. I found another job quickly, which has been treating me a lot better. It's not high-paying, but the schedule is regular, which means I get proper time off. This is great as I now have time to study Japanese. This month has had very long hours, but I was warned about it in advance.

Unfortunately, I was struck down with COVID. I'm currently isolating at home. I feel perfectly fine. Apart from a runny nose for two days, I have had no symptoms. My wife got a battering from it though. She was delirious with fever and headaches. She's feeling better now.

Anyways, I hope to return here. Of course, the rest of August I will be absent since the hours will be long, but September should be a lot better. Should be able to write up a few reviews. Speaking of which...

PREDATOR

Remember that assault on the rebel base in the opening half hour? Explosions laying waste to the outpost? Rebel scum burning as mile high fireballs engulf the jungle. Jesse Ventura decimating the local population. Stabbings. Punching. One-liners. Arnie lifting a car. Great fun, yeah?

Well, did you know that legendary director John McTiernan was not the helmer of this sequence? The story goes that producer Joel Silver was reviewing McTiernan’s footage and decided to pass it over to second-unit. It wasn’t due to Silver thinking McTiernan couldn’t direct action (he already had him pegged for Die Hard). In fact, Silver thought McTiernan directed action with an elegance that didn’t convey the excess of the average Schwarzenegger set-piece.

And that sums up why Predator is so bloody good. It defies expectations. Introducing a bad-ass crew of gunmen, and wiping them out one by one an unseen threat adds a genuine sense of tension and horror lacking from action films, especially the many clones of Predator. It feels closer to Michael Myers in the jungle – quietly observing and striking at the most opportune moment.

Helping matters is the script. It is a textbook of genre perfection. Like Aliens, the characters are barely above two-dimensional, but the script gives them enough detail to distinguish them from each other. Billy is observant. Hawkins tells cheesy jokes. Chavez is mischievous. Mac seethes. Blain chews tobacco. Dutch smokes it. Dillon pushes pencils. They all have their own ticks, and are fully fleshed out by a cast that may not challenge the average Queen Vic production, but pack as much charisma to match their firepower.

The script’s leanness is guided by McTiernan’s magnificent direction. McTiernan ratchets the tension tight, and lets it snap with nerve-wracking set-pieces. A character panickily flees from the titular beast, only to blindly slide down a slope, and fall off a cliff into a raging river. And that’s not even the end of the sequence! Alan Silvestri’s score handles this tension well, using military brass, pulsating drums, and an eerie synth that balances the sci-fi, action, and horror.

Praise must be given to Donald McAlpine’s cinematography. Predator is a very grainy film, but it works in the film’s favour. It conveys the filth, the dirt, and the suffocatingly hot jungle mist. You can almost smell the sweat off Bill Duke’s bald head. However, it is still a film rich in colour. Arnie’s red T-shirt pops, the jungle greens are lush, and the orange flames dance favourably with the dark blues of the night scenes.

Of course, if we’re talking about looks, we need to discuss the Predator himself. The original monster was to be played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, and it looked more like a giant insect. Van Damme bailed after three days, and a displeased McTiernan and Silver took the initial footage to Fox. Thankfully, Fox agreed, and ponied up the cash for Stan Winston. Winston (with some guidance by James Cameron) delivered a magnificent specimen. A seven to eight foot tall behemoth, the Predator looks like a plausible creature. I cannot overpraise this design and the effects that bring it to life. Although it is effectively a man-in-a-suit (the man being Kevin Peter Hall), it never betrays this. Its skin glistens, its limbs flex, and the facial muscles look alien but believable.

Are there any flaws? Hmm… Maybe one, but it’s hardly worth getting worked up about. The opening title card reveals the Predator arriving to Earth. This was a late studio addition, which was worried that audiences may feel deceived. The filmmakers protested, but Fox stood their ground over it. I honestly think allowing the audience to experience the slow horror before letting the cat out of the bag would have benefited the film. However, as I already mentioned, it's a minor issue.

I love Predator. It is a lean, mean sci-fi thriller that, while free from pretensions, is aware of the clichés of the genre, and uses them to play with audiences’ expectations. All while not having time to bleed!