All posts by Landon Evanson

Lists

PREDATOR PRINCESSES: THE WONDROUS WOMEN OF THE ‘PREDATOR’ FRANCHISE

Image Leave a comment

One of scifi/horror’s crown jewels began with the handshake to end all handshakes, and after seven highly entertaining movies and the most treacherous space villain this side of Lord Vader, the PREDATOR franchise continues to thrive 36 years later. But for nearly four decades, conversations about PREDATOR have revolved almost exclusively around Ahnold and the boys from the OG, with the occasional nugget about Danny Glover or Kevin Peter Hall and the other ginormous gents who’ve donned the Predator gear.

We thought it was time to change that. Today we’re here to talk about the five fiercest women from the PREDATOR universe.

5: ANNA (ELPIDIA CARRILLO) / PREDATOR (1987)

Few scifi/horror/action epics can match PREDATOR for machismo, but make no mistake, Anna was anything but a token character, she was a badass. We’re not allowed to forget that when Dutch and his team decimated the guerilla camp Anna didn’t hesitate to sneak up on Schwarzenegger, refused to stop doggin’ Dillon (Carl Weathers), and even packed Pancho (Richard Chaves) in the puss. Nor can we ignore that it was Anna who noticed the Predator’s blood on the leaves (insert iconic line here), helped the unit set up its (albeit failed) ambush, and even tried to grab a weapon and fight off the otherworldly warrior before Dutch kicked it out of her hands. And when the dust literally settled, we discovered that Anna had not only made it to the choppah! — but came back for Ahnold’s ass. Put some respect on Anna’s name.

4: ISABELLE (ALICE BREGA) / PREDATORS (2010)

The lone lass dropped into the game preserve in this non-stop homage to the 1987 classic that started it all, Isabelle was the personification of C.S. Lewis’ stance that integrity was doing the right thing even when no one is looking. An asset in battle and beyond, Anna offered invaluable input on topography and weather, to say nothing of her leadership and tactical skills. But Isabelle was unwilling to turn her back on a wounded Eric Forman (Topher Grace) when it would have been the easy (dare we say, smart?) thing to do. No one would’ve ever known, but she may have inspired GDT’s Elisa Esposito seven years early. Being partially paralyzed for her efforts, she paid a price for that decision, but still found a way to pull the trigger and save dollar store Dutch’s ass (Adrien Brody) when it mattered most. If you ever find yourself in a situation that needs to get unfucked with the quickness, you want Isabelle on your team.

3: LEONA CANTRELL (MARIA CONCHITA ALONSO) / PREDATOR 2 (1990)

As a nod to half of what’s on-deck, can we take a moment to appreciate tantalizing taglines? I mean, nothing can beat ’79 (and you know exactly what I’m talking about), but PREDATOR 2’s “he’s in town with a few days to kill” is for all-time. You know what else is historically relevant? Maria Conchita Alonso. Look, Leona grabbed Paxton by the package, talked NBA-level shit, and even after escorting several subway cars full of screaming Los Angelinos to safety, circled back to check on the only man ever killed by a Terminator, xenomorph, and a Predator. And don’t come at me with Cantrell getting a pass because she was preggers, Maria Conchita Alonso walked so Salma Hayek could run. For men my age…just know that Miss Alonso was finishing third no matter what.

2: ALEXA WOODS (SANAA LATHAN) / ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (2004)

Let’s keep in 100: Alexa Woods was a boss long before we even began talking about extraterrestrial evil. Woods was an environmental technician who was climbing Mount Everest when Weyland Industries summoned her to lead an expedition to a pyramid that suddenly appeared out of nowhere–2,000 feet below the Earth. Woods made it clear that the team was not ready for such an endeavor but stuck around knowing they had a better shot at survival with her leading the excursion as opposed to the silver medalist, making it perfectly understood that no one was to do any-damn-thing without her say-so.

Then all hell broke loose, and it was Woods who realized she and the others were caught in the middle of a war and needed to pick a side. When one of her cohorts realized that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Woods didn’t hesitate to reply, “Let’s go find our friend.” Alexa ends up in the good graces of a Predator after throwing down on a xenomorph to save said Predator’s hide, then teams up with them and runs side-by-side into battle in some BATMAN FOREVER homage we never knew we needed.

Long story short (too late, we know): Alexa further impresses her wing-beast by putting down her chest-burster infested friend, helps them escape the pyramid before it went boom, plunges a xeno queen into a watery grave, and gets the mark of a Predator warrior in one of the coolest moments in cinematic history. The takeaway? Predators FUCK with Alexa Woods. That’s badassery on an incomprehensible level.

1: NARU (AMBER MIDTHUNDER) / PREY (2022)

Like Woods before her, Naru was the smartest person in the room. For all the fragile boys who lost their damn minds about a woman besting a Predator when PREY hit Hulu last August, don’t hurt yourself but try to keep up.

Remember that throughout the film’s first half Naru was hunting and failing–but learning from those mistakes–and as her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) pointed out, she saw everything and always had. Naru was an innovator. She realized that in order to capture game she needed to be able to retrieve her hatchet quicker, so she fashioned a leash which not only saved her from drowning at one point but ultimately allowed her to conquer Dane DiLiegro’s Predator. Have we mentioned that she picked up on the fact that the ultimate adversary couldn’t see clearly if her body temperature was lowered, how to escape certain death with a bear trap after her dog got its tail stuck in said contraption ONE TIME, or how the Predator’s mask controlled its arrows?

Naru never outmuscled the Predator, she outsmarted it. And when she returned to Comanche camp triumphant in hunting something that was also hunting her–when everyone thought she would fail–the glance between Naru and the little girl was EVERYTHING. Without saying a word Naru clearly communicated “you can do this.” Representation fucking matters.

The passenger manifest for women in the PREDATOR franchise is a brief one, but this is a series that gets it. The women who inhabit this universe are intelligent, intense, and not waiting around for a man to come save them. And with a quick glance at the actors bringing these amazing ladies to life you’ll notice Latina, Black, and Native American because, again, representation fucking matters.

Editorials

WHY FATHER’S DAY IS ABOUT AN UNCLE I NEVER HAD

Image 1 Comment

I don’t remember my father ever saying I love you. What I do recall were summers in Iowa. Struggling with the weight of hay bales to feed the horses and being told that I should be stronger for my age. Watching him punch one of those Belgians in the head because they weren’t cooperating with what he wanted them to do. The morning we left one year, I had made him a gift but when the time came to part, he was too tired to get up, muttered “that’s nice, thanks. See you next time” and rolled over to go to back to sleep.

I also remember the drinking and verbal abuse. A fragile man so angry at his own shortcomings that he felt it necessary to intimidate his wife and children. I was 12 the last time I was in the same room with him. I made it clear the day would come when I was his size — and even more clear how much I was looking forward to that day.

I didn’t go to his funeral but am grateful to my father for one thing: showing me that who I wanted to be was the opposite of who he was.

Come to think of it, I’m grateful for two things.

I dove into horror at a very young age because I needed to escape into a world where I felt seen. Long before those dreaded summers in Iowa, were bi-weekly weekend visits when my father still lived in the same city as my mother. I’d endure remarks about my strength or speed, questions about why I wasn’t like my cousins, or anger about me spending most of the weekend in my room away from him. I only wanted to finish my work in the yard so I could head to the video store and pick up as many FRIDAY THE 13TH movies as my meager weekend allowance allowed.

I eventually explored non-FRIDAY avenues. Along the way I discovered SILVER BULLET (1985) and had an awakening. I had no idea who Gary Busey was, but ever since “another lovely night at sister Nan’s”, Uncle Red has been scorched into my memory.

Yes, he was an alcoholic and yes, he made decisions that were more about being the cool uncle than a responsible adult because who the hell buys their nephew a bag of fireworks to shoot off alone, in the middle of the night, when there is an active killer in town?

That’s kind of a huge red flag that I’m not allowed to ignore, but here’s my point: Uncle Red tried.

It was Uncle Red who said there was more to Marty than him not being able to walk. Uncle Red was the one who reminded Marty that no shithead can stop the good guys. Uncle Red was the one who walked into the sheriff’s office and shared a story about “this blue” and Reverend Werewolf. Uncle Red marched into a gun store with a concocted story about the Lone Ranger and asked for a silver bullet. And Uncle Red bought and paid for a romantic trip for two to New York so that he could clear his sister and brother-in-law out and be in the house to protect his niece and nephew during the full moon.

Uncle Red may not have always made the safest decisions, but he tried. He was there when it mattered. He believed in Marty and Jane when no one else would. And he fought for them.

Hell, Uncle Red built the Silver Bullet for Marty, not because it was the safest option–because it most certainly was not–but so that Marty had something he felt good about and was proud of. “I built that for you because I love you. Right from my heart.”

After Marty took said Silver Bullet–less a wheelchair than a three-wheeled motorcycle–out for a test run, Uncle Red warned Marty not to tell his mother how fast it was, to which his nephew responded, “ya know, I don’t get you.”

Uncle Red simply said “I know you don’t.”

But I did. And I do.

And I’m positive there are many of you reading these words for whom it resonates, as well.

While it was easy to see why Uncle Red’s sister was apprehensive about his influence on her son, it was just as easy to see that Uncle Red wanted Marty and Jane to be confident and happy, and never missed an opportunity to let them know that they could be more than he ever was.

This Father’s Day, I’m not an alcoholic or capable of building anything for which one may or may not need a pilot’s license — but like Uncle Red, I show up for the people I love — the polar opposite of my father.

And I did win a subscription to Popular Mechanics.

Editorials

SOMETIMES EVEN HORROR FANS WANT A HAPPY ENDING

Image Leave a comment

Before laying eyes on a single frame of THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017), I read about Guillermo del Toro watching Gill Man (the recently departed Ricou Browning) swimming beneath Julie Adams in THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) as a child and the thought he could never shake– “I hope they end up together.” No rhyme or reason, just his immediate and involuntary reaction to what was happening on the screen. And as we all know, GDT’s long-held sentiment resonated with audiences as well, evolving into an Oscar for Best Picture.

All of that to say that I recently experienced a similar moment. The difference being that it was nearly 33 years after the fact and the only association I’ll have with an Academy Award is openly questioning why Toni Collette didn’t receive one for HEREDITARY (2018), but that’s another story.

No, after returning home from an exhausting week of work, we decided to have a bit of an anthology party. Things kicked off with TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983) because Scatman Crothers and John Lithgow always hit the spot, with another terrifying television turned silver screen selection as chaser that had somehow eluded me all these years — TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE (1990).

How I’d missed it all these years I don’t know, because my family used to watch the show on (if I recall correctly) Sunday nights back in the day. Regardless, Debbie Harry and the kid who preferred noogies from PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES (1987) guided us to “Lover’s Vow” and I was immediately transfixed.

Without fail, James Remar understands the assignment and no matter how much praise she receives, Rae Dawn Chong will always be underrated to me. In other words, we were off to a good start.

The not-so-brief gist of the segment: an artist (Remar) struggling for inspiration meets his agent at a bar to buy time and get his hands on some cash but said agent (Robert Klein) dumps him saying he can’t live off of “ten percent of nothing.” Distraught, Remar gets hammered alongside a couple of buddies, but when they stumble into the alley to call it a night, one of those buddies is eviscerated by a gargoyle come to life that had been perched above said alley moments before. A stunned Remar gets slammed against a brick wall but spared so long as he can promise to never tell anyone about what he just saw. Of course, he agrees but on the way home, Rae Dawn Chong cascades around a corner. Freaked out about the prospect of the beast returning, Remar grabs her and ducks into a darkened doorway saying someone’s out there, and it isn’t safe. Remar assured Chong he wasn’t going to hurt her, and she says she thought she heard someone too and follows Remar to his place to be safe. SPOILER ALERT (but it’s clear as you watch it): Chong has nothing to worry about because she is the gargoyle in human form testing Remar to see if he’ll keep his promise.

Long story short? (Too late, I know) They actually fall in love, Chong puts Remar in touch with one of the most influential art dealers in the city, reveals that she’s pregnant, and ten years on they have two little ones.

Shorts either split the uprights or sail wide right, there is no in-between, but “Lover’s Vow” is the stuff of Morten Andersen. In a matter of minutes, we see a couple who are not only hot for one another, but have fun together, challenge one another to be the best version of themselves, and protect each other from the fuckery of the world. We believe that Remar is no longer bereft of inspiration and content with his work, that Chong has finally found peace and that life was all bananas and toothbrushes.

Until the night Remar felt compelled to express how much their life together meant to him. He couldn’t find the word to thank Chong for ten years of perfection and reached the conclusion that the only way to truly thank her was to tell her the truth about the night they met.

Remar grabbed a sketch of the gargoyle he’d done after the night that changed everything. When he began with “no one has ever seen this” and I tell you that I literally said “no. No, no, no. Shhh. Stop. You have it all. STOP TALKING!” out loud to the television — know that it’s not an exaggeration.

While I know it was a noble thing for Remar’s character to do–borne out of love and respect–the part of me that needed a happy ending after a shit week at the office and rejoiced in this no-longer-starving artist living the dream (married to Rae Dawn Chong, are you kidding me?!) was desperate for that mistake to not be made.

Alas, the chastising began. “You idiot! You promised!” Chong returned to her natural form as Remar declared his love for her. She responded, “I loved you too, but it’s too late now” and did what needed to be done. A decade on, one of them kept their word.

The segment ended with Chong back upon her perch, their children clutched tightly against her, overlooking the alley where it all began. A constant reminder of happiness discovered and destroyed.

If you’re reading this, I don’t need to explain that horror fans are a different breed, we invite unhappy endings. But every so often the mood is right, a water god feels a connection, or a gargoyle comes to life, and some part of us wants the universe to take the night off and let them dance.