Horrorfest 2022 Presents: AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004, Paul W. S. Anderson)

While I was viewing Alien vs Predator I realized that this definitely feels like the Jason Takes Manhattan of the series, in which case I end up defending the movie haha. I prefer JTM anyways and I thought this wasn’t worth more than a 7/10, however there are things to like about AVP and I wonder if maybe I wouldn’t end up liking it even more on a second viewing in the future. For now I’ll have to rely on this review, which is half assed like most of my writings these days.

A group of experts descend into a hidden temple in Antarctica that is located beneath the ice. There, they uncover ancient secrets that would greatly excite that History Channel Aliens Guy. Sanaa Lathan is the main character and arguably a type of “Final Woman/Girl,” along with Raoul Bova, Lance Henriksen (who was also in Aliens), Colin Salmon and Ewen Bremner, plus others who end up becoming the victims of the battle between Predators and Xenomorphs. I was hoping for a far more gorier movie than we ended up with, still you can’t get everything you wish for.

The pyramid endlessly shifting around was a really cool bit, and Lathan is really good as Lex. I learned that if you help kill a Xenomorph with a Predator you become their teammate of sorts, and that going to some hidden temple area is never a good idea, although I knew that one already from countless other movies. The tag line for this movie also still cracks me up: “Whoever wins, we lose!” Man that’s serious. Viewed thanks to Hulu which because they got the new Predator movie they had all the series available to watch, which is nice.

Horrorfest 2022 Presents: Without Warning (1980, Greydon Clark)

Alright hear me out: an alien comes to earth to hunt people and faces off against a group of people in the woods. Sound familiar? Well this isn’t Predator, it’s Without Warning, a cheesy early 1980s movie that definitely inspired Predator. Even though it is not as good as Predator (not really in the same ballpark, actually) I still enjoyed this cheesy and quite violent sci-fi horror movie. The cast is largely made up of young people you’ve never heard of, save for a pre stardom David Caruso, yet the flick does have some heavy hitters to assist with the kind of flimsy plot.

You have Jack Palance as a gas station owner who in typical horror movie cliche fashion warns the young people to go home. They ignore him of course. Martin Landau plays a crazy veteran who ends up being just as dangerous as the alien-I feel his character wasn’t necessary and could have been cut from the movie. Ralph Meeker, Cameron Mitchell and Neville Brand appear as movie veterans who aren’t a big part of the movie yet offer it some character actor gravitas.

Funny enough Kevin Peter Hall also played the alien in Predator and he does so here as well, and I liked that the movie only bothers to show the alien later for mass effect. Despite lagging a bit in the middle, this is still a solid and entertaining killer alien movie. The alien sucker things the alien throws at it’s victims are creepy to me, and the movie wisely does its job and concludes. This was part one of a triple alien feature I decided to do via Shudder a month ago.