Predator is often categorized as an action film, but that is a startlingly inaccurate label for it. An action film depicts a battle, after all, some kind of competition between Good Guys and Bad Guys, or some more wholly complicated equivalent-- But Predator, on the other hand, is through most of its length shows one unbeatable force of nature cutting its way through a group of action heroes who are as well-equipped to destroy it as a fly is to destroy a fly swatter. Even the archetypal action-flick Adonis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, only manages to get a handhold on the situation through complete accident. And for that reason it mimics not an action movie, but instead follows the exact course of a slasher film, except that instead of a group of teenagers against a man with a knife, you witness a group of supposedly-competent military badasses as they're cut apart in surgical fashion. Had the visual direction been more conscious of its place in film (And perhaps if the cast members hadn't included Jesse Ventura and a man known as "Ahnold"), it would be rather obvious that Predator is a horror film. And despite its misrepresentation, it still presents a solid example of the genre, creative in its choice of characters and a forward step for horror itself.
Review by A Cloudspotter, SupineBlockedParentSpoilers2015-10-09T02:42:27Z
Predator is often categorized as an action film, but that is a startlingly inaccurate label for it. An action film depicts a battle, after all, some kind of competition between Good Guys and Bad Guys, or some more wholly complicated equivalent-- But Predator, on the other hand, is through most of its length shows one unbeatable force of nature cutting its way through a group of action heroes who are as well-equipped to destroy it as a fly is to destroy a fly swatter. Even the archetypal action-flick Adonis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, only manages to get a handhold on the situation through complete accident. And for that reason it mimics not an action movie, but instead follows the exact course of a slasher film, except that instead of a group of teenagers against a man with a knife, you witness a group of supposedly-competent military badasses as they're cut apart in surgical fashion. Had the visual direction been more conscious of its place in film (And perhaps if the cast members hadn't included Jesse Ventura and a man known as "Ahnold"), it would be rather obvious that Predator is a horror film. And despite its misrepresentation, it still presents a solid example of the genre, creative in its choice of characters and a forward step for horror itself.