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.
The Raid On The Village Was Not Shot By McTiernan
It turns out that the raid of the village set piece and the stunts throughout it were set up and filmed by the stunt coordinator and second unit director, Craig Baxley. According to McTiernan in the audio commentary on the film’s DVD (via Medium), that’s why it feels more “static” with still cameras shooting the wild stunts. McTiernan didn’t like the sequence, but was convinced by the film’s producers to keep it in the final cut.
I fully understand why it was kept in; it certainly provides a certain ‘80s pizazz to the movie. Beefy dudes with great big biceps, led by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, and Carl Weathers (in one of his best movies), with great big guns creating huge explosions that led to flying bodies. It’s what audiences expected in 1987. However, given how great the second half of the movie is, when those same beefy dudes are being hunted by the titular monster, the movie has a completely different (and much more successful) tone to it.
It Opened Doors For Baxter, But…
Predator kicked off a three-movie run for McTiernan that I would put up against any three-picture run from any director. His next two movies were Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October, both of which are total remote-droppers for me and among my favorite movies ever. The film also kick-started Baxter’s directorial career, with, well… mixed results.
After his successful stint as the second unit director, Baxter, who started his career in stunts, made the jump to the director's chair, debuting alongside one of the stars of Predator, Carl Weathers, in Action Jackson. Next, he teamed up with Dolph Lundgren for I Come in Peace, also known as Dark Angel. His next (and to-date, last) big-budget action movie was the 1991 gem, Stone Cold, starring football player Brian Bosworth. Like I said… mixed results.
Baxter settled into a career mostly directing for TV after Stone Cold tanked at the box office (like Bosworth’s career in the NFL), and he clearly had a very definite style, but it was much less interesting than McTiernan’s, and that is on stark display in Predator. Without McTiernan, the rest of the franchise, including 2025's Predator: Badlands (available with a Hulu subscription), probably would not exist.
