In the parlance of the horror fan, the Final Girl is the one who lives. Through her wits, tenacity, and a dogged determination to survive, she evades the killer bearing down on her neighborhood/summer camp/ abandoned amusement park.
In "Predator," the 1987 action-horror masterpiece playing on Thursday, Sept. 26, at the Ambler Theater, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays one of cinema's finest Final Girls. Directed by action cinema veteran John McTiernan and starring an all-star cast of rippling mid-80s brawn, "Predator" remains an enduring genre classic because it does what precious few 80s action movies could; it makes its heroes vulnerable.
"Predator" begins in typical enough fashion for an 80s action flick. There's trouble in an unnamed Central American country and a crack team of paramilitary commandos led by Maj. Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent in to help CIA liaison Al Dillon (Carl Weathers) rescue hostages from guerrilla insurgents. In its opening scenes, a standard action movie is exactly how "Predator" plays, from its cinematography down to the banter between the ragtag group of heroes.
Slowly, however, the film metes out hints that there's something else out there in the jungle not of this world stalking the team until the rug is pulled from under the viewer and the heroes alike. "Predator" promises something akin to the later "Rambo" movies, and delivers something more harrowing and thrilling.
Subverting expectations is crucial to "Predator's" success. The main cast of "Predator" is hardly what you would consider typical horror movie fodder. Rather than the unsuspecting teens of slasher films or the blue collar space truckers of "Alien," "Predator" loads up its cast with heavyweights. Schwarzenegger, arguably the biggest action star at the time of release – both physically and figuratively – is joined by the likes of Carl Weathers, still sporting his Apollo Creed physique, and Jesse "The Body" Ventura in the midst of his pre-politics wrestling days. They're tough, brash, and prepared for whatever the jungle has to throw at them. And it still isn't enough to save them. The tension in "Predator" lies in watching the characters make all the "right" moves, and still fall prey to the largely unseen creature hunting them.
What director John McTiernan understood better than most action movie directors of the 80s is that a vulnerable hero is an engaging one. Perhaps best known as a director for his 1988 action opus "Die Hard," McTiernan's best films have a viscerality to them not seen in their contemporaries. Dutch is very often caught on his back foot, forced to evade and react to his alien pursuer. He gets physically beat up and mentally worn down. In films like "The Terminator" part of the appeal is in Schwarzenegger as an unstoppable force, a one man army. We have no doubt he will make it to the last act relatively unharmed and ready with a one-liner In "Predator," the audience genuinely fears he might not make it out alive, and the final conflict between man and alien becomes one of the tensest face-offs in the action film canon.
In the years since "Predator" stalked theaters, six sequels and countless video games and comic books have tried to recapture the thrill of the original to varying degrees of success ("Prey" from 2022 is very worth your time, "Alien vs. Predator" movies are best kept at arm's length). While later films would amp up the violence and throw more of the titular aliens into the mix, very few of them have the right mixture of elements, the right tension, or the dread of seeing an unstoppable force come up against something that halts it in its tracks.
"Predator" will show at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26, at the Ambler Theater as part of their Retrograde film series. The screening will be followed by an after party and trivia held at Forest & Main Brewing Company at 33 E. Butler Ave. For ticketing information, visit amblertheater.org.
