THE PREDATOR Trailer Wants You to Know That Space Aliens Are Scary

Welcome to Lewton Bus, where it’s all trailers all the time! Hey, we can’t help it if the Hollywood marketing machine keeps spitting the danged things at us. We’re just doing our jobs! So, next up? Shane Black’s The Predator, the fourth installment in the titular action/science fiction/horror/future-governor franchise. Normally I wouldn’t be particularly interested in a new Predator film, especially as, despite the bonkers charms of Predator 2, the franchise has been on the decline. 2010’s Predators¹ was a milquetoast take on the material; a failure of imagination that even a hella shredded Adrien Brody couldn’t save. So what’s got me pumped about the idea of this new movie? Two words: Shane Black. Black is a screenwriting legend, sharp and funny as hell, and in more recent years he’s proven himself to be one hell of a director. Plus, he was actually in John McTiernan’s original masterpiece, Predator. If you weren’t aware, he played Hawkins, the four-eyed jokester in Schwarzenegger’s ill-fated squad. He also did some polishing on the script.

He wasn’t smiling for long.

So, yeah. I’m excited just based on his involvement. So, let’s see if this new trailer makes up for the rather underwhelming first trailer.

I’d say it certainly does. The action looks solid, the Predator looks like a genuinely scary badass,² and there are hints of Black’s trademark humor. My only concern? The big reveal at the end of the “evolved” super-Predator who rips the P-man backwards through a wall. First of all, it’s too bad they’ve spoiled that moment, because I can imagine it playing like gangbusters as a surprise in theaters. Secondly, I’m concerned this means we’re going to see a grudging alliance between the Predator and the humans in order to take down the bigger bad. Alien v. Predator already did that, and it was pretty lame. Speaking of those movies, we already had a super-Predator, the Predalien, in Alien v. Predator: Requiem,³ so it seems odd to return to that well.

But, hell. This is Shane Black we’re talking about here. I have faith in him, and I know I’ll be hunting (SWIDT?) for a seat in theaters on September 14th.

1. Holy moly, that was eight years ago? That’s insane.
2. These guys really haven’t since the original film.
3. I seem to be pretty alone in thinking that movie was thoroughly enjoyable on a schlocky b-movie level. It did some unexpected things and got truly nasty at times.