1987’s Predator, from director John McTiernan, came out at the perfect time for me. I was about 12 years old, and I had the chicken pox about the time it hit video stores for rental. Having the chicken pox, I took advantage of my mother’s sympathy and convinced her to rent this rated-R movie for me to watch while home from school.
The film, available to watch with a Disney+ subscription, entranced me. As I got older and rewatched it over the years, I came to realize that it really feels like two different movies. There are action-sc-fi-horror elements in the second half of the film that really launched the whole Predator franchise, and it is incredible. The raid on the village in the first half , though, feels incredibly cheesy in a bad ‘80s action-movie kind of way. I recently learned why the two halves feel so different.
