2 Guys And A Chainsaw

Predator (1987)

Episode 385, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, we’re not doing a Chucky movie today. Whoa. What a bummer.

Craig: I forgot that there were other movies. 

Todd: Anyways, that was a long, long, long stretch of Chucky. And then, I enjoyed it so much that I ended up binging the first season of Chucky in just like a day in the morning.

Ha ha ha ha ha. You’re nuts. It was fun though, I really enjoyed that. But anyway, today we’re doing another tribute episode. This is 1987’s Predator. Which, uh, stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers, as Dylan and Carl Weathers died, uh, last month, I believe, from heart disease. He was 76, and he’s probably best known for the Rocky franchise, playing Creed.

Mhm, Apollo. Rocky’s really cool. Good friend. Well, adversary 

Craig: turned friend that, that, yeah, that’s really, I mean, I remember him from this and he did other stuff too, but that’s, that’s what I remember him from. ’cause those movies are really good movies. I don’t know if our listeners are into, you know, those movies or whatever, but I liked them all really?

But Oh yeah. The first three, especially, were like, really good, like, character driven movies. Carl Weathers was in that, in the first movie, he’s Rocky’s opponent, and like, you know, they’re kind of adversarial or whatever, and Apollo’s the big shot famous guy, and Rocky’s the new up and comer, and Carl Weathers is super charismatic, very handsome.

He’s really got the charisma of, like, a prize fighter in real life. And so that, Worked for him in that movie, and it’s on display here too. He’s a charismatic, charming guy. He really is. But, uh, that’s kind of all I know about him. I didn’t really have the opportunity to do more research, but what I do know, after Carl Weathers died, Sylvester Stallone almost immediately got on Instagram.

Todd: Today 

Craig: is an incredibly sad day for me. I mean, I’m so torn up, I can’t even tell you. I’m just trying to hold it in because Carl Weathers was such an integral part of my life, my success. Everything about it, I give him incredible credit and kudos because when he walked into that room and I saw him for the first time, I saw greatness.

But I didn’t realize how great that was. I never could have accomplished what we did with Rocky without him. He was absolutely brilliant. His voice, his size, his power, his athletic ability, but more importantly, his heart, his soul. It’s, it’s, it’s a horrible loss. And I’m standing here in front of this painting because it was probably the last moment we were ever in the ring together and I’ll never forget it.

He was magic. And I was so fortunate to be part of his life. So, 

Todd: Apollo, keep punching. 

Craig: He’s really struggling to hold back the tears. And to see a big tough guy like that get so emotional over the loss of what was clearly a dear friend, you gotta think the guy had to be pretty cool. 

Todd: Yeah. Did you see, um, I think is it called Stallone or Sly or something that a whole documentary on Sylvester Stallone on Netflix.

No, I didn’t. There’s a similar one called Arnold that’s, uh, that’s up and if you’re at all interested in these two guys and their careers, you should give it a listen. I think we might have even kind of mentioned this or maybe just you and I chatted about it briefly some other time about what an interesting guy Sylvester Stallone is and how he is the closest thing Hollywood, Has to a self made man, you know, he, uh, was just basically had a dog and was practically homeless and was doing bit parts and movies and not going anywhere.

But at heart, he’s a writer and he wrote that movie Rocky just basically to survive and was hoping to sell it, but was really insistent that he directed. He got a couple offers, but he held out until he got an offer that allowed him to direct. And of course, you know, that just. Launched him into the stratosphere.

And then at this point, he and Arnold, and it’s really interesting seeing both of those documentaries, I have to feel, I didn’t look this up, but I have to feel they were almost shot by the same teams, or at least they shared footage with each other. Because there is a point where Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, their careers almost paralleled in the 80s.

They more or less invented this notion of the big budget action superstar with muscles. And I never really considered this before, but before those two guys, action superstars, they were just dudes, you know, like they weren’t big muscly bodybuilder type guys. And because of those two, they suddenly all the action movies we got in the eighties were guys who were just ripped, you know, huge biceps going out with guns blazing and just tearing through stuff and tearing through people and they had a competition going.

Like, literally, these two guys were at odds, like, with their careers. They were not even friendly to each other for a while. You know, oh, your movie had so many guns. Well, my movie’s gonna have so many guns. Oh, your movie had this big of a body cut. Well, mine’s gonna have a bigger body count. All the way up through the 80s until finally it, you know, it became less of a thing and it’s all rather silly anyway.

This is one of those movies earlier one of Schwarzenegger’s after Terminator where he really just it’s just all about muscles and guns At least 

Craig: for a little while. No, that’s all it’s about well an alien but that is all it is and it is straight action the only reason you would call this a horror movie is because The antagonist is otherworldly.

That’s it. I mean, yeah, movie. It could have just as easily been just some other bad guy who was really good at, I don’t know, hiding. And then it would have just been a straight action movie because it totally is. And that’s great. I like these kind of action movies. They’re fun to watch, but it is. It’s just a bunch of big, muscly guys.

And like, Oh my God, I can’t even imagine the testosterone on this. Like they were always trying to outdo each other, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and who was the wrestler? Oh, Jesse Ventura. Yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger pranked Jesse Ventura because he told the wardrobe people to tell Jesse Ventura that his arms were an inch bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s and that totally, you know, pumped Jesse Ventura’s ego.

So he challenged Arnold to a contest and whoever won would get the champagne and then he lost because it was all. A lie like stupid bro things like that and like they had Arnold got to the gym one day one morning and Jesse Ventura was all we already there so then they kept one up in each other getting there earlier and earlier and earlier Carl weather said eventually they were getting to the gym at like three o’clock in the morning meanwhile Carl weathers who’s also ripped never worked out with them because he was trying to trick them into thinking that he didn’t have to work for it like that was just his natural.

And so he did work out all the time, but never when anybody else was around just stupid like guy stuff and they’ve all got big guns and there’s lots of explosions. I know, 

Todd: right? It’s wild. They don’t make movies like this anymore, really. Really? I mean, God, the 80s. I think I said this on an earlier episode too.

What is it, the one that we did where the guys were cops and one of them ends up, uh, Joe Piscopo’s in it, one of them ends up I don’t know, Dead Heat? Dead Heat, that’s it. Well, we did Dead Heat, which is kind of a parody of, you know Well, not these kind of movies, but similar movies in the eighties would, and there’s just one scene in the beginning that we talked about how it’s just so eighties with insane gunplay, just the number of rounds of blanks and squibs that they went through in five minutes is just way over the top.

And that was just what it was like. This is what movies. I think this is what brought people into the theaters in the eighties. And it’s funny that you mentioned because. You’re right. It is debatable, I suppose, whether this is a horror movie because I was mentioning to my friends the night before I watched this, I was out at a little party, going away party for a friend of ours.

And, uh, I said, I’m doing predator for the podcast. And they were like, that’s not a horror movie. I said, yeah, it’s, it’s a horror movie. And they’re like, And they’re like, no, it’s not like super scary. Like, you know, the monster’s not creeping around the corner. I’m like, well, yeah, he is. But, uh, and then I just started rattling off other horror movies.

I said, well, is Frankenstein a movie that a horror movie then? Because you see the monster in the very beginning and know exactly who he is. Oh yeah. Well, that’s true. But you know, I mean, anyway, we were going on and on and, uh, it was a very. Interesting conversation, and I think I changed some minds and broadened their horizons a little bit about what a horror movie can be.

A horror movie can be a slasher, can be a comedy, can be an action movie, all this stuff. And after watching this, I sort of felt like, this is more or less Friday the 13th with muscly army guys. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is the final girl. You could even, I think even when the script was getting passed around, it was being talked about as alien in the jungle.

The writers are two brothers, uh, Jim Thomas and John Thomas, mostly known for doing this movie and a few other action, exciting movies from the eighties and early nineties. Like Wild Wild West, which didn’t do too well, executive decision, which I remember enjoying a lot. And the director, John McTiernan, very.

Big time action director. Uh, the year after this, he was directing Die Hard. Mm hmm. The Hunt for Red October came next. Die Hard with a Vengeance. Last Action Hero. That’s a good movie. Thomas Crown Affair remake. Yeah, man, I love Last Action Hero, and it does not get the love that it deserves. So you got all the pieces in place, all, you know, action writers, action stars, Shane Black, haha, who wrote Lethal Weapon and more or less changed 

Craig: it.

That’s what I thought, I, his, his name was so familiar, I’m like, he’s done other stuff, like, I think he’s done stuff not as an actor. Yeah. So he wrote 

Todd: those? Yeah, he wrote the Lethal Weapon movies, he’s basically credited with changing the whole landscape of, of action films in the 80s and these kind of buddy cop things, and also wrote, uh, Long Kiss Goodnight, which everybody else loves.

Oh, I love that movie. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I think it’s way over the top and ridiculous, but that’s what it’s good about it, 

Craig: or yeah That’s what people were going to the theater to see they want They don’t want to see something tame. That’s lame It’s got to be big 

Todd: the bigger the better. That’s true Well, and he’s in this movie as an actor so but back to carl weathers.

This guy was an all around athlete Like, growing up, he went to school on a football scholarship, he even played pro football with the Raiders for a few years under John Madden, but he always wanted to be an actor, like, from the get go, even in high school, he was in school productions, when he was in college, he majored in acting, and when he was doing football, he was as an extra in movies, and he eventually went on to, uh, To get a master’s, I believe in theater.

So he definitely had his heart set, even when he was playing football and sports on acting from the very beginning. Not one of these like sports stars turned actors later. So yeah, what an interesting guy. And he didn’t just play football, man. He was like cross country, track and field, basketball, just all around athlete.

And so, well, he has an 

Craig: amazing physique. Like he’s a big guy with. Big muscles, handsome, handsome guy. And I’m not surprised. None of this, even though I didn’t do the research, I did, I do remember now that he played professional football. I knew that at one point, but, uh, all the acting stuff, it doesn’t surprise me.

He’s really good. He’s not just some good looking dummy. Like he’s a good 

Todd: actor. Oh, he is. Okay. 

Craig: Okay. Okay. I didn’t know when to quit, huh? Damn. Good to see you Dutch. What is this f g Thai business? Oh, come on. Forget about my Thai, man. I heard about that little job you pulled off in Berlin. Very nice Dutch.

Good old days. Yeah, like the good old days. Then how come you passed on Libya, huh? Oh, that wasn’t my style. You got no style, that you know that. Come on, why’d you pass? We a rescue team, not assassins. And I forgot that he’s kind of shady in this movie. I had completely forgotten about that. Like, I thought that he and Arnold Schwarzenegger were like, like this was kind of like their buddy movie.

Yeah. And it is a little bit, but they also are, there’s, there’s tension between them too, and they’re angry at each other at different parts. I had forgotten that. Well, 

Todd: apparently as originally written, this movie was supposed to be just a solo, It was just gonna be all Arnold Schwarzenegger in the jungle.

Craig: I don’t even understand how that makes sense. That seems dumb. That was a bad idea. Smart of Schwarzenegger to bring more guys in. Yeah! Because if it’s just the two of them, what do you do? You just watch them tussle for an hour and a half until what? Well, like, 

Todd: how does that end? There are movies like that.

I mean, what? The Revenant was what? How long? I don’t know. The movie already felt long enough. I couldn’t have imagined just seeing Schwarzenegger and this guy in the woods for the whole time. So yeah, it was good. There’s a little bit of drama. It’s it. The movie almost obviously with the marketing and the name and all that stuff, you know what you’re getting into, but it almost pulls a fast one on you because it is.

It does start out as a straight up action film with this Crack team of commandos who were sent, uh, under kind of weird pretexts to rescue diplomat who found himself on the wrong side of the border. And by accident, the helicopter is downed and there to go in and rescue him. And, uh, but it’s, you know, again, like all these movies are, it’s, it’s, this can’t be official.

It’s ex army military guys who have their own little kind of elites rescue squad is what he says. They don’t do assassinations. Schwarzenegger’s character, Dutch, makes that very clear early on and tries to clarify, this is a rescue mission, right? Cause that’s the only kind of thing we do. And he’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it sure is.

And, and then later it turns out it wasn’t quite that. And then it turns out to be something else altogether. It 

Craig: seems like they are like private contractors, right? Like they are not part of the military establishment. Correct. But then later, Carl Weathers starts giving Arnold Schwarzenegger orders and he takes them.

I didn’t understand that. 

Todd: Yeah, you’re right, actually. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But also, isn’t Carl Weathers a representative of the government or I think so. One of the 

Craig: army? I think he’s military. Yes, because I think all of these folks, Schwarzenegger’s folks, are all ex military. Yes. And Carl Weathers was like their friend, but he didn’t leave.

And Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks that he’s jealous and that’s why he’s trying to insert him itself into this mission because Carl Weathers is there by surprise when they arrived. They didn’t know he was going to be there and Schwarzenegger like greets him like friendly. But then the military guy says that.

What’s his name? I don’t remember. Dylan. Dylan is Carl Weathers. He’s gonna go with you, and Schwarzenegger’s like, Nope, nope, it’s just our team, not doing it. But they talk him into it! So, he goes to. And they’re going into the jungle, And they, like, sh I don’t remember where they shot, But, in the actual jungle, where they were Mexico, 

Todd: apparently.

Poisonous snakes 

Craig: and spiders, And they all got dysentery, and like, It was Pretty miserable by 

Todd: nightmare. 

Craig: Shoot. Yeah. Super hot. Like, Oh God, that would be terrible, but they’re going in there, but they’re told in advance that the place is crawling with guerrilla soldiers and it is. So. I mean, we immediately see Predator POV.

Now, of course, if you’ve never seen this before, you don’t know what’s going on. But it’s just, it kind of looks like, uh, what is it called? Infrared or 

Todd: heat. Yeah, it’s, it’s like infrared camera type stuff. And you’re right. We’re not exactly sure. Well, there is an establishing shot at the very beginning of the movie at, as the credits start of a spaceship flying by the earth and something getting shot off and, and falling in.

That’s right. So an alien presence is kind of established, but you could easily forget that. And like, you’re right. It is. There’s like a predator POV and they’re weird sounds. And, you know, I have to say like the sound design in this movie, I was really impressed with, and I felt like the sounds of the predator and the sounds when the predator was doing the predator POV added a lot to the horror at a time, particularly early on and for quite a while in the movie where there’s not much horror going on.

Like you have the sense, you know, these guys step out of their helicopter. Sure. I wrote in my notes, two future governors jump out of the helicopter, both Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura would go on to be governors of California and Minnesota. Oh, that’s right. I forgot Jesse Ventura was governor too. So funny.

And then they, you know, they get in their tent and they have their meeting, like you said, and there’s this gratuitous bicep shot. Where the two of them lock arms when they first see each other? I didn’t even understand what 

Craig: was happening. It was so 

Todd: crazy, right? 

Craig: Like, until they greeted one another. And it’s such a, like, macho power move.

Like, I am the dominant one. Like, it’s so 

Todd: stupid. It’s like become a meme, I think, since then. You can see this stuff, they just, the camera just lingers on their two biceps as they’re doing this little arm wrestle in the middle of the air kind of thing. So weird. 

Craig: And then Arnie beats Carl Weathers, which I don’t even know if I buy, because Carl Weathers arms looked huge.

And ironically, Arnold Schwarzenegger lost a bunch of weight for this movie. That’s funny, right? Yeah, I know. I think it was like 40 or more pounds or something. I don’t remember. It was a significant amount. Because, apparently, mercenaries need to be muscular, but they also need to be lean. Cause they have to be fast and like, you know, tactical and stuff.

So he actually took off a lot of body mass. So, and, and there’s other stuff. Like we meet the other guys, like these other guys are fun. Like the, they seem like, I mean, they’re tough, but they are like loyal. Like they are a real team and they’ve got each other’s backs. And, and, and I don’t remember, God, who’s the guy that tells the jokes.

I love the guy that tells the jokes. 

Todd: That’s Shane Black, but I don’t remember the name of his character. Williams or something like that? Hawkins, Hawkins. Hawkins, Hawkins. 

Craig: They’re all in this plane, like, going out to the jungle. He’s like, I said, you know, I’d like a little pussy! She said, me too! Mine’s as big as a house!

Todd: And he keeps making 

Craig: these jokes. I’ll forget, so the other one. Wait, wait, I don’t want to mess it up. Maybe you’ll just play it, but I remember the punchline. Oh gosh. Um, 

Todd: so the other day we, you can, you can tell I was going down on my girlfriend and I said, man, your pussy’s huge, man, your pussy’s huge. And she said, why did you say it twice?

He says, I didn’t.

Oh 

Craig: my God. Oh, like he’s so it’s, it’s funny to me. Not because I mean, the joke is crude, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s really crude. 13 year old guy, humor or whatever. But. What got me was just that he delivered it, not just with such sincerity, but with just such glee, like he was so proud of himself and he thought they were the funniest jokes he had, I laughed a lot 

Todd: well and he’s delivering them to Billy, this like a native, I think Native American, or at least he’s supposed to be Native American guy.

Well, he’s Spanish speaking. That was the vibe I was getting. Yeah, I don’t, I have no idea. And you know, the whole, the whole shtick that he is, is like, he doesn’t laugh. And so it’s like, he kind of explains it to him, like he doesn’t get it. But Billy is like the super, super stoic, super serious, badass of the group.

And that comes into play 

Craig: later. But, but he does the, the, the, that second joke gets him and he like laughs like a huge, you know, gut laugh out loud that whatever’s in the woods records. And plays back really quietly. So we find out that whatever this is, is collecting recordings of their voice. It only comes into play once.

Later in this film, but I think it comes into play later in the other ones. And so, but anyway, this is all leading up to, and there’s other guys too. There’s a Mac. He also is real serious and seems like a real bad ass. And, uh, I don’t know. Okay. But this is all leading up to what had to be, I have no idea. I wasn’t paying attention to the time.

It had to be a 15 minute action sequence, right? Oh yeah. Oh, at least they, they get to the camp. Do they find some dead guys first? Yeah, 

Todd: they find three bodies, skinned bodies, hanging upside down in a tree. Boy, I forgot how gory this movie was, too. Me too. I guess, I’m stupid, because I didn’t remember mainstream movies this time, you know, being as gory as they were, which also made me think, yeah, definite horror, definite horror movie, but, God, RoboCop was one of the goriest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

Oh, yeah. And it was Certainly around this time as well. But yeah, this is a very gory movie for a mainstream action film, I think. And not just like, oh, the guns shoot the guy and so blood splatters, but there’s horror type gore. Yeah. You know, there are stabbings and heads exploding and skinned bodies and entrails and.

People getting 

Craig: their spines ripped out. Mortal combat style. Yeah.

I guess it is a horror movie. Definitely 

Todd: a horror movie for sure. Yeah, they find these bodies skinned alive and they, and they know one of these guys, so one of these guys was from, I think, another team that they had sent in. I don’t know, that all kind of missed by me, I hadn’t picked up earlier on that they had sent another team in, but I guess that’s maybe what the downed helicopter was from.

I 

Craig: wouldn’t have figured it out, I mean, they have to tell us, they have to tell us, we know these guys, these guys are like extractors too, what’s really going on? Yeah, what are they doing? Yeah, something, something’s going on. Ultimately, I don’t even really I don’t really know what was going on. Carl Weathers is involved in some way.

Like he manipulated, like he got them there somehow. Like he’s the reason that they’re there. It’s it’s 

Todd: ham fisted and it’s nebulous. It’s, it’s almost like lazy writing and almost eye rolling because by the time they get to the guerrilla camp, huge explosions, lots of guns. Obviously, they mow everybody else down without breaking a sweat.

It’s typical Schwarzenegger where at one point he just is walking forward and just shooting his machine gun in random directions. Nobody’s bullets hit him. Smoking a cigar. Oh, smoking 

Craig: a cigar. I don’t know, maybe. That’s what I see in my head. I don’t, I 

Todd: mean. Oh, no, absolutely. He’s smoking a cigar. The whole first part of this movie when he’s just cocky dick, you know?

Anyway, they they make it into the camp and they take out everybody but this this unconscious woman who’s in this room that looks important because it’s got maps and things in it and documents. And he picks up one of the documents and I don’t know Oh my god, are you just 

Craig: gonna skip over it? Like, honest, shit, that was like 15 minutes, that action sequence.

Oh, I know! It kicks off with him, like, rolling some kind of truck that they’re using as a Generator? I didn’t even 

Todd: know what was happening. Which he lifts with his bare hands. 

Craig: Uh huh. He lifts it up from the back. And so that he can put it down in the tires will touch the ground and like he sets a bunch of bombs like in it and it like drives into the camp and huge explosion and then there’s You know machine gun fire back and forth between the mercenaries and the gorillas and you know They’re fighting with their fists and they’re fighting with knives and how am I and it goes on forever Oh, and Jesse 

Todd: Ventura’s gun is this massive, like, Gatling gun type thing that just rotates and shoots out bullets after bullets.

And I was like, God, that is an insane that’s the only gun I want. I think everybody should just have that gun. 

Craig: Nobody could shoot that gun. No. Those are not even intended to be held. No, they’re not. Like, those are the kinds of guns that are mounted on Oh, 

Todd: apparently that gun was so heavy and unwieldy, it, it, it, they had to slow down the frames because it would go through a, you know, a round of bullets in like two seconds.

So they had to slow down the frames so you could actually see it spin and, and, and give it some time. And I think there was a guy who had to run behind him with the gun. The giant 100 pound battery and all kinds of stuff. No, it was a mess to get to have him to have him operating this gun. It’s just insanity.

Looked cool 

Craig: as f k though. It sure does! 

Todd: By the way, all through this movie, the amount of ammo that these guys are obviously like carting around through the woods, especially when they’re all on their own, is just, 

Craig: it’s insane. There’s a scene later where Mac fires that same gun. For a solid minute, at least.

Yeah. Like, that had to have been thousands of rounds. Right. 

Todd: It’s so cool. 

Craig: I mean, there’s, there’s not a lot to really talk about. I just want to emphasize the fact that it was a huge, like, this is, it’s an act in and of itself. Oh, it is. And then, right, then he finds, he finds those documents, and that’s where he kind of finds out what’s going on.

But I still don’t really 

Todd: understand. Yeah, okay, I understand you don’t want me to gloss over the giant action scenes, but, but yeah, you’re right, the documents, it’s never really explained, but it seems like there are different people who are meeting there, like one of the guys who were dead was like a Soviet person, he said something big was going down here and we were meant to break it up, weren’t we?

And he’s like, yeah, and you lied to me and blah, blah, blah, and I don’t know, it doesn’t even matter, right? I really do think 

Craig: that it’s not. Entirely clear because I feel like there are like theories about what was really going on and and I don’t remember if this is in the movie or if I read it, but ultimately the military knew about the predator and they were sending in Dutch and his Oh, I didn’t knew about the predator and they were sending in Dutch’s team.

To flush it out. Maybe that’s just a fan theory, but I know I read that somewhere. 

Todd: Oh, it could be Predator related, except, you know, then you would think that Dylan knows there’s a creature. Like he would be the guy in the know, right? Maybe. He would be the The Paul Reiser character, you know, the alien or something like that.

Yeah, I don’t know. Anyway, whatever. I don’t know. I just got the sense that there was some political bullshit 

Craig: happening. Right, and I think that it’s explored further in the sequel, because I read some stuff about the sequel too. Ultimately, I don’t think that the target audience for this movie cares. Like, who cares?

Stop talking. More 

Todd: explosions. Quite frankly, neither do I, to be honest. 

Craig: And I’m not trying to demean the target audience. I’m the target audience for this. You know, young, adolescent boy to middle aged man. This is right. Down my alley. I love it. Yeah, I don’t care. Like it really doesn’t matter. Actually. Why are you complicating it?

Like it doesn’t have to be complicated send them in there for a legitimate reason and there happens to be an alien there What are you 

Todd: gonna do? Yeah by this point their goal is very simple They’ve got to get to their extraction point and which is being delayed for some reason because something’s been compromised again There 

Craig: are too many gorillas.

Yeah, there are gorillas 

Todd: all around even though They never encounter another gorilla ever, 

Craig: but apparently they are surrounded by them except for this one valley, but the helicopter, I don’t think the helicopter can land in the valley. So they’ve got to go through the valley and like, they make a big deal out of, Oh, great.

The Valley. Like, why is that any different than the rest of the jungle? I don’t 

Todd: really understand that. Oh, I’ll tell you why. Like, from a military standpoint, you don’t want to be in the valley, you want to be on the mountain. Right, right, 

Craig: right. Cause, you know, line of sight and all that. Which, which ultimately is important because this Hunter I think Hunter would have been a better name for this franchise, by the way.

Cause that’s 

Todd: what they are. Wasn’t that the original name of the franchise? I don’t know. Maybe it was. No, this was shot, as they were shooting it, they were gonna call it Hunter, but there was a problem with, there was a very famous TV show or something right this time. Oh, I missed that. So they changed it, yeah.

Craig: I missed that. Well, that’s too bad, because it would’ve made more sense. Whatever, Predator is iconic now, so who cares. But that’s what this is. It’s a game, Hunter. The humans are 

Todd: game. Yeah. It’s like the most dangerous game with an alien. 

Craig: Yeah, there’s, there’s some, like, talk of eventually, so this girl, that the one person that was left alive after this big action sequence, they take her captive for reasons that I don’t understand.

Carl Weathers is insistent that they bring her along. Wait, she goes with us. She’s too valuable. She’s got to know their whole network. She’ll give away our position any chance she gets. No deal. You’re still under orders, Major. Now you wanna make that call or should I? She’s your baggage. You fall behind and you’re on your own.

And Carl Weathers is terrible at holding on to this girl. She gets away from him several times. He’s 

Todd: also just terrible at staying quiet. I think there’s one point where one of the soldiers chews him out. I think it’s Mac, right? Turns around and is like, you give our position away one more time and I’ll kill you myself.

Craig: They’re not very happy with him because he definitely deceived them to get them there. Mm hmm. And, and now they’re in trouble. And then, I don’t know, what, the Predator shows up, starts killing people. Who’s he kill first? There’s, 

Todd: uh, Trail, So Much Cigar, Scorpion Smashed, Back to Predator, Descend into Valley, Great Sand, Oh, I love this line by Jesse Ventura, I think this is before The Predator, but one of the guys looks at him and says, you’re hit, you’re bleeding, man, he goes, I ain’t got time to bleed, 

Craig: Yeah, that was in the action 

Todd: sequence, and then he throws like a grenade, he goes, well, you got time to duck, That’s

Craig: I found Jesse Ventura to be very amusing. They stop because Billy gets spooked. You said before, like, he’s kind of the stoic one, like, super serious, hyper aware. Arnie’s like, What’s going on and he’s like there’s something in the tree in the trees and he’s right but they can’t see it and it runs away for the second time and Hawkins Shane black chases her and catches her but then is killed by the predator like he turns around and I feel like it’s standing right behind him I don’t remember if it stabs him 

Todd: or this is no he swipes at him and in front of the girl this is this weird it’s like an invisible hand thing right all we’ve seen so far is predator vision and I liked the way that this was.

I really like this because we see a bunch of predator vision, we know they’re being stalked by somebody or something, but we don’t see what it is. And then there’s this bit where a guy kills a scorpion on another dude’s shoulder and leaves it there. And then the predator vision comes by and takes the scorpion, but we see up for the first time like a claw, like a claw type hand.

Yep. In the predator view, grab the scorpion. So now it’s established there’s something otherworldly, you know, stalking them, but we still haven’t seen it. And then in this scene, we still don’t see it, but what we do see is this weird kind of cloaking, like it’s invisible, but you can sort of see where the, where the woods kind of the light bends around it.

So it’s got some kind of invisibility cloaking device, which I saw a little documentary about this a couple of years ago about how they pulled this off at the time. Cause you would think that this, you know, nowadays this would be like CGI. There was no, there was not much CGI happening in 87, not enough for this movie, way too expensive and complicated.

Craig: It’s so clever, I’m so glad that you’re going to explain it because when I read about it I was like, that is so clever. 

Todd: Right? They had a guy in the, in the predator suit. You know, wearing all red, but you can’t wear green, because the whole jungle’s green, so it’s, it’s all red. And they film that, and then they do the take again, but then they change the lens on the camera.

So it’s like a, a wider, uh, vision camera, which is gonna distort, compared to the first, it’s gonna distort what you see. So then they just keyed him out, and then they overlaid the second foot, the footage from the second camera, uh, that was shot with a different lens. Where he was in, you know, where everything was red now becomes the second footage, which is just jungle.

So the jungle is just like a little more distorted around that very area where he was. It’s so smart, really. 

Craig: And it looks kind of just like a shimmer, like, like a shimmer in the ether. It’s reminiscent to me of like heat waves. Yeah. That you see, you know, on a really hot surface, so camouflaged, virtually impossible to distinguish, especially surrounded by all of that nature, you know, surrounded by trees and bushes and you know, all that stuff.

He blends right in it’s and it’s cool because even us watching it. It’s like where’s Waldo a little bit Yeah, you have to look cuz it’s it’s just a little it’s just slightly off. But once you find it, there 

Todd: it is It’s very cool But once you know this and you you know You watch the movie carefully you can see that they don’t move the camera During those scenes when the predator is there right so that they can accomplish this effect so they can do two takes right at least When he’s there, you know in the cloaking But she’s not killed, this guy’s dragged off, and almost immediately they come, and they notice she hasn’t been killed, and there’s something weird, and she sees this green blood that nobody else either sees or is interested in, which I thought was weird, but what they do is track the body, and he finds a mess, I think, I can’t remember if it’s Mac, I think Mac is the guy who goes and finds it, he’s like, um, I found something, but I’m not sure.

If it’s Hawkins or what it is, and they go back and it’s just guts, they fairly quickly surmised. I think it’s later, but Schwarzenegger surmises that the reason that she was not killed is because she was not armed, 

Craig: right? These are game hunters, but they are ethical game hunters challenge. They will not.

Attack and kill you if you are unarmed. It needs to be a fair fight, which I respect. You know those asshole big game hunters who are going and killing lions and shit? If the lions had guns too, fine, that’s fair. But they don’t, so you shouldn’t get to either. You wanna go out there and fight a lion? Go for it.

Be my guest. Otherwise, leave them alone. But anyway, we find out in the second movie that they also do not kill lions. Children or pregnant women. Oh, so like I said, ethical game hunters. We see that Hawkins body is hung up high in the tree. That 

Todd: was a great shot. It was good. It’s very horror. You know, like this is so it really takes a lot from horror in a lot of these shots in these scenes and this one too, where there’s a body that we see, but nobody else discovers it.

There’s a point where somebody discovers the body. You know, it’s way more horror than action in the way some of this is shot. And I thought that was cool. That scene where it just slowly pans up the trees and you’re just waiting and waiting and waiting to see what horrible thing it’s about to reveal to us.

It’s really clever. She, she grabs some of the green blood before they, before they take off. She does, 

Craig: but she doesn’t say anything about it, but she touches it. Like, I don’t think she’s like taking it with her. I think that she’s just touching it to see what it is. Yeah, and she wipes it on her She wipes it on her pants.

And it glows this, this is a neon green iridescent light that they just used some kind of gooey sticky substance that they mixed in the chemicals that go in glow sticks. And so it glowed, it looks cool. I mean, why not? It’s an alien. It can have glowing blood. Awesome. But it’s, it’s really soon. They just stop in another place.

And Blaine, Jesse Ventura, gets shot and killed from afar, and Mac sees the predator in his cloaked form, running through the forest, and shoots that giant, ironically they’re called a minigun, but that big, you know, spinning gun, and starts shooting into The forest and then all of the rest of them come and join him and they all stand there and shoot machine guns into the forest for a solid minute 

Todd: they just mow down this force in front of all yeah it’s so funny you know it’s interesting because I read in the trivia later that they didn’t I you know what I don’t know what it is about me but like I was thinking of ethical filmmaking you know I was a little bothered by the I think they obviously killed that scorpion, although it’s just a scorpion.

It’s still, you know, like to do something like that for a movie. We’ve talked about this before. Also, you know, destroying jungle for a movie is kind of shitty, but apparently they didn’t destroy this part of the jungle. This was already cleared out and they just went in and sprayed a lot of tree stumps with black and stuff like that to make it look like it had just been mowed down.

So that was kind of nice to see. But anyway, yeah, they, they mow that area down and it’s like, how much ammo do these guys have and why are they using it all up in one go? As I 

Craig: understand it, ammunition is very heavy. Yeah. And the amount that they’re using, where is it? And how are they, how are they trekking it through the jungle?

Todd: Exactly. There’s nobody’s dragging a big wagon full of ammo behind. They’re not even wearing packs. No, it’s ridiculous, but it’s exciting. It’s a movie, whatever, who cares. Jesse Ventura has a giant ass hole in his body. It’s pretty impressive. This thing can shoot as well. It shoots like laser type energy bursts or something.

I don’t 

Craig: know what they are, but they like, like you said, it blows a hole through his whole body. Yeah. It looks like a little ball of light that moves pretty fast. Yeah. Like when it finally impacts, it kind of explodes too, doesn’t it? Yeah, it does. I feel like there are lots of explosions. Yeah. Apparently Blaine was his best friend and like there’s a whole mourning scene.

They set up some defensive traps and the predator is off somewhere else and he’s still bleeding. But he turns off his cloaking device, which is the first time we kind of get a look at him. It’s dark, you don’t really get to see a lot, but he’s clearly alien. Stan Lee is the designer. The man is brilliant, took inspiration from a painting he saw of a Rastafarian.

John Carpenter said, I feel like I’ve never seen anything with mandibles. And so he gave it mandibles. 

Todd: Yeah, James Cameron actually said that. But yeah, you’re right. Apparently, James Cameron and Stan Winston were, happened to be sitting next to each other on an airplane when he was sketching this out. And so he got to throw some ideas his way.

It’s this is a very Rastafarian looking. I 

Craig: love it. I think it’s a great look. It’s very cool. Like it doesn’t literally have dreadlocks, but it has like these tendrils that come out of the top of its head that look like dreadlocks. It’s awesome. It’s a really cool design, but this 

Todd: was not the original design.

No. Have you seen what the 

Craig: original design was? I have. I didn’t look it up again this time. I don’t remember. I don’t know that I’ve seen the original design, but I did see footage of Jean Claude Van Damme in a bodysuit. Yeah, 

Todd: it’s really funny. Like this was going to have like backward bending legs and all kinds of stuff.

I mean, when you look at it, you can tell you don’t have to be an expert to tell this thing was. Clunky and lumbering and very difficult to pull off even just walking through the forest let alone Trying to do all the moves that they wanted the predator to do and so stan Winston was called in last minute as a friend of schwarzenegger’s I think it was schwarzenegger who recommended him to design something a little more and he ended up going with a more humanoid form which Obviously works a lot better for the stunts and the things like that poor jean claude van damme who I believe had been Had more or less just gotten to America and was trying to become a big action star and thought that he was going to be on screen for this movie.

Ends up in this clunky ass suit. Hates it. More or less quit, I think. Uh Yeah, he 

Craig: quit. But, I mean, then they redesigned it and turned it into a great big giant person. Mm hmm. Well, humanoid. Played by a, uh, a large actor. That suit was like 200 pounds, like And it’s a hundred plus degree weather and the humidity of the jungle.

I can’t even imagine. There were times where they had to have him kind of suspended by bungees just so that he could move 

Todd: around. That’s so nuts, right? It is 

Craig: nuts. Even looking at it. Those guys are so cool. Those stunt guys and stunt actors. The ones you probably wouldn’t even recognize their face if you saw them on the street.

Like Doug Jones. Like Doug Jones has been an. Everything. And he’s amazing. He has such unique movement in his body, but you never see him. He’s always under makeup and, or masks or whatever. You, you, you never, you very rarely actually see his face. This guy, same thing, you know, basically a stunt guy and, and such hard work.

But. It’s so 

Todd: cool! Unsung, right? I know! This is Kevin Peter Hall, and uh, he was a basketball player, he’s 6 foot 9, a super tall guy. The Predator, all together, is almost 7 feet tall. You know, he also, not only was he like in Predator 2 and whatnot, but, do you remember Harry and the Hendersons? Yeah, I love that movie.

Yeah, he was the monster in the monster suit for that as well. I love, like, I love that movie. God, man, that’s a movie that I would expect to be better remembered than it is. And so now I kind of want to go back and watch it and see if it was really as good as I remembered it to be. I watch 

Craig: it from time to time.

It’s 

Todd: adorable. He does make an appearance with his normal face as a helicopter pilot a little later on in the movie, I think at the end. But he died at the end. 35, man. So it’s really kind of sad, man. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, I have absolutely no idea how he died, but sometimes people with abnormally large bodies like that face health.

Like it’s hard for your heart to pump blood through all that. I’m just totally making that up. He could have died in a car accident 

Todd: for all I know. I can tell you exactly how he died. Yeah, he died of AIDS, which he contracted through a blood transfusion. Oh, it’s terrible. It’s like the one two punch right there.

Craig: It is. I mean, they figure stuff out Dutch figures out that it’s in the trees and they figure out that it’s hunting them and it’s picking them off one by one because it is Anna reveals that she can speak English and they are like, what is it conveniently? Yeah, she’s like. I I don’t know, the forest came alive and it took him, which I I can’t really think of a better way to describe what Yeah.

She saw, I mean, how do you explain that? And so then it starts picking them off, and it does, it picks them off one by one. They gotta get, get to the chopper! You gotta get to the chopper! Get to the chopper!

They keep trying to get to the chopper, but the thing just, like, it’s literally just trailing them, and whoever’s at the back of the herd just gets picked off. Billy, like, resigns himself to his fate. Yeah. You know, like, it just stands there and waits 

Todd: for it. Dutch eventually decides they need to make a stand, and so that’s when they, they, they, like, set up traps and things.

I love this one scene where she suddenly becomes a chatterbox. Like, not only is she speaking English, but she has this whole long ass monologue. When I was little, we 

Craig: found a man. He looked like, like Butchard, the old woman in the village across themselves. And whisper crazy things, strange things. El diablo cazador de hombres.

Only in the hottest years this happens. 

Todd: And they called it the demon who makes trophies of men. So, it’s even known. So, like, I guess the predator comes back to the same spot. Like, this is his hunting ground for generations. We find out 

Craig: later in the series that this has been going on for centuries. Ah. The most recent.

Prey is set, I don’t want to say in prehistoric times because it’s the time of humanity, but like tribal days. Like I, I feel like the tribe that it focuses on are like Comanche or something. It’s fantastic, by the way, in my opinion, perhaps the best of the sequels. Anyway, that’s a tale for another day. Or.

For just 5 a month, you can read my, my review that I wrote on that movie after I watched it just to become a patron and you’ll have access to lots of extra stuff back to the show. You’re right. So when she’s saying what she saw, she also said, and it’s bleeding. I found some of its blood and I don’t know if she shows them.

I think she does maybe. And Schwarzenegger’s like, if it bleeds, we can kill it. I can’t do a good Schwarzenegger. I don’t have like the Germanic. Accent, but yeah, there’s a part where Schwarzenegger and uh and like the only other guy besides the two black guys I think his name’s poncho who immediately gets killed their goal is to But both Mac and Carl Weathers, Dylan, yeah, they go after the predator because the predator has now killed somebody that was close to each of them.

Yeah, they don’t even particularly care about getting out of there if they if they can get to the chopper, they can get to the chopper, but they’re most concerned about taking out this thing, which it’s so funny to me because like they kind of their team and their pair and Mac finds it and, like, points it out to Carl Weathers and it apparently doesn’t see them.

It’s still cloaked, but they, they can, you know, vaguely see it. And they hatch this whole strategy where Carl Weathers is gonna go around and flush the Predator towards Mac and then Mac’s gonna take it out. It doesn’t go at all to plan. No! Like Like Like Minute they are both dead. I was 

Todd: standing there thinking why don’t they just at least shoot at it from here, you know It’s 

Craig: in range I 

Todd: would think it seemed like it but maybe it wasn’t who knows mac.

It’s a terrible end badass really crawling underneath some trees as he’s crawling he sees these three dots on his arm and when he backs up those dots are on his head and the You know, it’s like a laser sight for the Predator’s gun and it shoots. I think it’s kind of funny, right? Like, so we have these laser sights and that’s a very typical action movie thing, right?

You see the red dot on your forehead. Oh, you know, it’s in trouble. I’m sure somewhere they were like, how do we make the laser sight seem more accurate? Alien. Oh, how about three dots instead of one? That’ll do it. But he gets blown up and then Carl, he has kind of an interesting end where he gets his arm chopped off the same arm he’s using to shoot the gun as it’s shooting the gun, the arm is.

It’s on the ground. And then 

Craig: he tries to one arm it, but the thing just kills him. Yeah. These guys do not really get valiant deaths, like they’re just kind of picked off. True. And so then once they’re picked off, then the predator goes after the other three, and it kills Poncho, or whoever else is the last of the commandos, or whatever they are.

And so now it’s just Arnold and Anna. Schwarzenegger tells Anna to get chopper, get to the chopper! So she goes off in one direction and he goes off in the other direction and the predator chases him and he ends up falling, thank god, and sliding, sliding on his butt. Maybe, I don’t know, 15 feet before going off a cliff that had to be, I have no idea.

I mean, it was ridiculous. It was so 

Todd: high. I guess that blew out the stunt guy’s knee, that stunt there. You know, jumping into water. I, I’m a swimmer. I’ve jumped into water from a lot of different heights and I just take it for granted that you’re going to be okay when you fall in water. You know, that’s what happens when you play video games, but you come in high enough.

No, you can, uh, it’s like getting concrete at some 

Craig: point. Right. But he’s fine and he starts going off into the woods. The predator follows him. Like he 

Todd: ends up with mud all over him as he’s coming out of the water, which I didn’t quite understand at the time. I was like, how did he get all this mud? I guess he was crawling through it.

And there’s this really tense scene where the Predator lands right next to him. And he’s just not moving, backed up against and within a bunch of roots of this tree. And the Predator can’t see him. And so he immediately surmises that the mud is keeping him protected and out of his sight. So, I guess we’re supposed to believe that the mud is cloaking his body 

Craig: heat?

Yeah, it’s dumb. I mean, great, fine, fine, whatever. No, the mud would just heat up and his eyeballs aren’t covered in mud. You know, apparently 

Todd: they literally tried this. They tried to shoot the thermal imaging stuff. With Schwarzenegger covered in the mud, but it turned out the mud, of course, didn’t cover up his body heat at all.

So then they were doing this elaborate shit, like trying to ice down the trees and spending all this money, where eventually they just went in and through special effects got whatever they needed. Well, 

Craig: and apparently it was terribly uncomfortable for him. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just because it was shot at night, it was really cold, and it dropped his body temperature.

I mean, it literally did drop his body temperature. Yeah. You know, he was, uh, shaking. I, I read that before I saw it and I, maybe I imagined it, but I felt like I could see him shivering. A little bit. Yeah. Anyway, it can’t see him because he’s covered in mud. I don’t know. I feel like at this point, the predator is kind of like, eh.

Lost one, whatever, and goes off into the forest to give Schwarzenegger enough time to, like, make a bunch of, like, booby traps out of sharp sticks and tree trunks and stuff. 

Todd: Oh, it is a long sequence of trap building. He’s a regular MacGyver here, which Schwarzenegger can pull off with the stuff. 

Craig: And they’ve already done this once before.

Right. But it didn’t work because they had everything on the ground. And the predator travels via the trees. So this time he knows the predator travels via trees, even though he does still have traps on the ground. He had like makes some bombs out of gunpowder and leaves and I don’t know. It’s, it’s a whole.

Deal, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s Kevin trapping the house in, in home alone. 

Todd: It’s that sequence. And he doesn’t have a gun anymore. So it’s just like a bow and arrow type stuff. Yeah. Like, 

Craig: but with like exploding arrows. Yeah. And so he starts, he starts a big fire, I guess, to lure the predator there and it works.

And the predator comes and I don’t even really like, apparently the predator still can’t see him because at one point the predator is right next to him and we’re to believe that the predator can’t see him and he kind of sidles off to the side. Schwarzenegger does. He wants to get the predator on this big log, like there’s this big log across like a ravine or something and he wants to get the predator on there, but I don’t remember why.

Is he just because eventually he shoots at it with one of those arrows. Did he miss intentionally or is he just a bad shot? 

Todd: I don’t think he meant to miss. I just think he was, you know, there’s a bow and arrow he constructed. I was going to say, 

Craig: these are crude instruments. So, all right, fine. Fair enough.

Then somehow Arnold falls in water. So his mud washes off so he can be seen again. To be fair, the predator’s camouflage system fails too. So we can see him now, even though the predator only has, he only has eight minutes of, you know, time. Screen time in the whole 

Todd: movie. His electronics are maybe like, malfunctioning.

I think because of that shot that uh, Schwarzenegger had done earlier, yeah. Maybe. He picks him up, and actually has him pinned by the neck up against a rock. And then he does something very interesting. He walks away. And just in front of Schwarzenegger, while he’s just standing there, he starts to take off his mask to reveal himself, and I guess that the idea is, once again, he doesn’t want to kill an unarmed guy, or he’s so impressed by this guy’s, you know, ability to evade him and fight back that he wants to make this Like he’s a worthy 

Craig: adversary?

Todd: Yeah. So Fair fight. So they’re going to go at it like mano a mano, no masks on no weapons or whatever, which is good because otherwise the predator had this shoulder mounted cannon. He can just pretty much aim at him and blow him away. Right. So, yeah, so now it becomes kind of a physical fight and Schwarzenegger is trying to lure him and eventually gets him back to that trap area and crawls through that little mini tunnel that he had made and is laying there.

And it looks like. The predator is gonna go right into it, but he is too smart for that. As he’s standing there, he just kind of surveys the scene and is like, something’s not quite right. And he kind of looks by his head and reaches up and notices the spikes there. And he goes over it and I was like, Oh my God.

Craig: I know. Up until that point, I don’t, I don’t feel that you emphasized enough that this is a physical fight, but Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting the shit beat out. Oh, he’s so it like, like he is just getting the, you know, like hit and flies 10 yards, you know, back and he’s getting thrown against trees. And at one point the predator has his head pinned to a log with like.

Spikes like a fork type thing. Oh man. But yeah, then he gets, then the predator evades that trap and it’s so frustrating. But what’s even more frustrating to me is then the trap just works anyway. Or was that like a backup trap? I didn’t understand what happened. I think it was 

Todd: like a backup trap. Yeah. He had a, kind of a big log, a hoist piece.

Had way up in the tree. I don’t know how he did that, by the way. I don’t . Yeah, 

Craig: you like a have a pulley system out there. . 

Todd: But yeah, he basically ends up dropping a giant log on the, on the predator. And at first he’s not sure it worked. ’cause then as he’s walking away, he starts hearing some screaming and he goes back and then he sees that it’s laying there and it’s just completely bloodied.

Huh. And that seems to be the end, however. He’s not too injured to laugh. 

Craig: Well, he pushes some buttons on the pad on his arm and something starts to happen on it. It’s not difficult to figure out as Dutch figures out immediately that it’s a countdown. I also thought that it was interesting that Schwarzenegger, when he sees that the predator is still alive, picks up a giant rock, like he’s going to finish him off, but then he doesn’t.

Yeah. That was, I don’t know if that was, I guess. But it’s, I don’t know if he saw some humanity in the thing or it was 

Todd: weird. They were, he had some respect for him or he saw, he thought he was going to die anyway. So let’s like, let it happen or something. I don’t know. But why, why give this guy an inch of.

Right. 

Craig: It doesn’t really make any, well, and then he’s stupid. Cause then he, you know, that countdown’s going down and the predator laughs. Now you caught that that wasn’t his laugh, right? That was the recording of Billy’s laugh that he had 

Todd: recorded earlier. Oh, I did not catch that. Oh, 

Craig: that’s cool. Yeah, that was so the predator doesn’t actually laugh like a human.

He just plays that recording back. I guess he’s mocking Schwarzenegger. 

Todd: I feel better about that. Okay. Yeah, that doesn’t sound it’s not nearly as cheesy. Yeah, 

Craig: so Schwarzenegger takes off running and then there’s a huge like electrical explosion. 

Todd: It’s like a mushroom cloud. 

Craig: But he’s fine. And then we see that Anna got to the chopper.

Into the chopper! And that’s it! Uh, we didn’t do his other taglines. He’s got like three taglines in this movie. If it bleeds, we can kill it. I think I did that one already. And then when, when the predator has Arnie held up by his neck pinned against a tree and he’s got his mask off and his mandibles kind of are moving and open up a little bit.

Arnie says, You’re one 

Todd: ugly motherfucker.

Craig: So funny, that line gets brought up again later in the franchise more than once, I think. But Arnold’s apparently fine, and the chopper comes and gets him, and he’s in the chopper, and it flies away, and that’s the end. Yep. 

Todd: That’s Predator. I started 

Craig: watching Predator 2 today. It’s wild. Really? It. Is. I didn’t finish it, but they had to do, like, They had to run it through the MPAA 19 times before they got it down from an NC 17 rating to an R.

Wow. No way. It is crazy violent, nudity, like, What? Some fairly graphic scenes. Sex, and this is in the first 20 minutes, because that’s all I 

Todd: watched. I haven’t even finished it. 

Craig: No, it’s crazy, and Danny Glover is the lead guy, and there’s other good people in it. I didn’t finish it, but. And I think, I think I’ve seen them all.

There was Predator, and then there was Predator 2, and then I think that it went away for a long time because Predator 2 didn’t do very well. And then there were the Alien vs. Predator spinoffs, two of those. And then Predator came back with like The Predator and Predators. Ah, right. One of those, I don’t remember which one it is, I think it was Predators, starred Adrian Brody, who really beefed up for the role.

And the premise of that one was that the Predators had taken a bunch of humans to like a game reserve on another planet. So the human beings weren’t the only other creatures and The Predators all had like different weapons and tactics and they had like hunting dogs, but of course they’re not dogs, they’re like alien dogs, it’s crazy.

That one was kind of wild. And then I already mentioned Prey, which is a, you know, a prequel from hundreds of years ago. I loved it. You’re 

Todd: not the only person to say they loved it. When I brought it up the other night to that group, somebody was like, Oh my god, have you seen Prey? It’s amazing. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s really good.

But anyway, I don’t know. I mean, I liked this. I was telling my friends at work today, by the way, part of the reason that we’re doing this is because my friend Rob, who I have lunch with every day in my classroom, he teaches with me in my department, he’s a fan of the podcast. And he texts me about the podcast sometimes.

And he texted me, he’s like, Carl Weathers died. Does predator count as a horror movie? And I wrote him back. I’m like, hell yeah. So thanks, uh, Rob for the suggestion. But I was telling my friends at work. Didn’t like it as much as I remembered liking it. I remember when I was a kid thinking it was so cool.

And I don’t know if just my sensibilities have changed. I still enjoyed it. But at an hour and 47 minutes. It was a little long 

Todd: for me. Yeah, I felt the same way. There was a point at which I was getting a little bored. But, but, you know, I could see in the, if I was, if I had paid money to go into the theater and sit down and this was my sole focus and my only option.

Right. It’s actually kind of engrossing to see how is this guy gonna survive. And it’s really around the point, I think, where it’s just one guy against the Predator, where it starts to feel a little long. At least it did for me. But, you know, like, the trap setting and all that stuff, and then the back and forth between the two of them.

I mean, it’s good filmmaking. It is, it is. It’s well structured, it’s very But, I don’t know, I think maybe also our sensibilities have changed. Like, like, movies just, they move faster, you know? They pack more into a shorter period of 

Craig: time. Well, and like you said, They just don’t really make movies like this anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. The closest thing that I can think of would be like mission impossible or maybe even better. Like the fast and the furious, like where it’s, it’s, it’s so focused on the action pieces that the story, you know, there’s a story, but who cares? And 

Todd: that’s not necessarily to say things have improved.

To be honest with you, I get. Kind of bored at these all action movies myself. At any point, they just feel unrealistic. Like, everything is happening and, you know, people are flying through the air. And I mean, you can do anything now with stunts and, you know. Oh, yeah. So it’s, it’s almost comical how ridiculous and over the top things get.

One thing that was kind of nice about this movie was how more grounded it felt. It did, 

Craig: aside from the fact that there was an alien with cool technology, it did. It felt, you know, the people never did anything that people couldn’t do. Right, it wasn’t 

Todd: like martial arts flying through the air and all kinds of crazy stuff, yeah.

Craig: Right, so anyway. I liked it overall. I mean, it was fun. Nostalgia is a major callback to a different time. It was nostalgic for me. I told you this privately, but my dad was a big fan of these movies and these big action heroes. And so that was something that we could do together. And, and I have great memories of, you know, watching these movies with my dad and he would get so excited.

He would get really excited about these action movies. He was like, that was so cool. So it’s nostalgic for me, uh, for that reason. Through my. Current lens, you know, I, I’m not going to rush out and go back and watch all of this Schwarzenegger Rambo Stallone. I’m not going to run out and go back and watch all of those.

I’m not that nostalgic for it, but this was a nice little return to something from my childhood and a great opportunity to pay tribute to the great Carl Weathers. Who seemed to be a very cool guy. He, you said he was 74, something 

Todd: like that. 74, 76. I 

Craig: mean, that’s, that’s a, that’s a pretty good run, but by today’s standards, that’s still relatively young.

I hope his family has found peace. It’s been a little while now. He was a good guy and I’m happy that we had the opportunity to talk about him. He 

Todd: was busy. He’s been on the Mandalorian. I think for the last few years. I have not watched the Mandalorian, but I I do believe he was nominated for an Emmy for his performance on that.

So working up to the very end. Well, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. As Craig said, Said, you can find us on Patreon as well if you want access to a whole bunch of behind the scenes stuff and extra things that we do for our patrons. That is patreon.com/chainsaw podcast, and also chainsaw horror.com where you can find our website.

Leave us a comment there on any of our social medias. Let us know what you thought of this episode and, uh, give us some requests for films you’d like us to do in the future. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.