Editorials
[We Love ’90s Horror] The Mythology Expanding Fun of ‘Predator 2’
The ‘90s often get a bad rap with horror fans. After the numerous successful slashers and creature effects films of ‘80s, the ‘90s offered a different variety of horror fare. Though there were plenty of hits, hidden gems, and misunderstood classics, the ‘90s usually don’t get the kind of love that other decades get when it comes to horror. It’s time to change that.
Predator is one of the best action/horror/sci-fi films ever made. It’s a lean, polished, and propulsive machine that delivers exactly what you want while continuing to surprise you. Making a sequel to Predator felt like a no-brainer. There were so many fascinating avenues that the first movie opened up. And when it comes to expanding the mythology of the Predator, Predator 2 is a definite win.
Changing the setting to a big city like Los Angeles was an obvious but welcome move. It feels like a natural progression of where the Predator should hunt next. The best scenes in Predator 2 often have to do with how the Predator interacts with this new environment. An extended sequence on a subway or a menacing shot of the Predator on the side of a building gives us a cool aesthetic to stick the Predator into. It’s even used for some effective comedy when the Predator smashes into a bathroom and the tenants think there’s a prowler in the house. As far as making use of the urban locale, Predator 2 does a fine job.
The film’s best asset is director Stephen Hopkins. Fresh off the kaleidoscopic A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Hopkins discards former director John McTiernan’s grounded sensibilities and gets wacky. There is a kineticism to Predator 2 in the shot choices that makes the whole film feel bonkers in the best way. Even the editing has a sense of humor to it, with a character’s unexpected decapitation turning into a bit of gallows humor. And Hopkins is clearly a fan of effects because every gag in the film gets plenty of attention. A tracking shot of the Predator walking through a puddle and its camouflage malfunctioning is made awesome thanks to Hopkins’ direction. Not to mention the numerous additions to the Predator’s weapons and the delightfully gory results they produce. The best one has to be the razor wire net.
And the best part of Predator 2 is how it adds to the Predator mythology without taking away from what happened in the first film. It doesn’t try to explain or justify certain unsaid things from Predator. Instead, it simply expands upon natural ideas the first film implied. For example, the first film never suggests that the Predator has been to Earth before. For all we know, this is the first time they’ve ever visited our planet. Predator 2 is able to suggest a larger history just by showing us a certain item that the Predators have in their possession. We also get to see a skull trophy case that implies the Predators have hunted species all across the universe. And sticking in an Alien skull is a wonderful bit of fan-service that also makes the audience realize just how formidable the Predators really are.
But, in all honesty, Predator 2 is as frustrating as it is fun. Turning the story into another mystery surrounding what the Predator is makes the sequel retread too much familiar ground. That’s made doubly disappointing as the plot involves government agents with prior knowledge of the Predator. Why the movie didn’t make one of these agents the perspective character is a baffling choice. Instead, we get Danny Glover as a foul-mouthed loose cannon cop. Glover isn’t bad in the role — in fact, the casting of this movie is downright excellent — but none of the characters are as cartoonishly enjoyable as they should be. And I’m not even going to touch the over-the-top racially insensitive sub-villains in this flick.
Still, Predator 2 is worth the price of admission. Between the strong effects work, direction, and clever expansion of the Predator lore, this is a sequel that puts in the work and reaps the benefits. It’s a clunky movie but succeeds at keeping the title monster fascinating and awesome. And we’re clearly still clamoring for more.
Despite what the higher-ups at Marvel would have you believe, Stan Lee’s original vision for Spider-Man was very different from the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler that fans ultimately got.
It was comics maestro Steve Ditko that turned him into the lovable web-head that we all know and love, though even that first draft of the character wasn’t exactly meant to be a child-friendly mascot. Ditko envisioned an uncanny arachnid-human hybrid whose freakish poses and dark costume would strike terror into the hearts of criminals, with the inclusion of web-shooters possibly having been a suggestion by Ditko’s roommate at the time, renowned fetish artist and bondage enthusiast Eric Stanton.
These more adult-oriented origins may have changed over the years, but one could argue that Spidey never completely lost his darker side. In fact, we’d eventually see several grim storylines that explored the horrific consequences of Spider-Man’s radioactive blood. While having his irradiated body fluids give Mary Jane cancer is likely the most terrifying of these yarns (track down Spider-Man: Reign if you’re up for a depressing read that was at one point set to be adapted to film by Michael Jackson), one of the most memorable horror-adjacent moments in these comics has to be the acceleration of Peter Parker’s mutation and the eventual introduction of Man-Spider – a storyline that appears to have been one of the main inspirations behind the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
I sincerely doubt that Marvel Studios is really going to give their toy-selling juggernaut a Cronenbergian rebrand, but the most recent trailer for Brand New Day suggests that the creative team is pulling from some surprisingly spooky source material in this latest superhero sequel. Specifically, the trailer makes it seem like the film is set to be a loose adaptation of the Neogenic Nightmare arc from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, commonly known as the best exploration of Spidey’s radioactive dark side that also features the most iconic version of Man-Spider.
If you’re wondering what these influences could mean for the upcoming film, I’d like to invite you to join me as we look back on some of the animated series’ most horror-tinged episodes.
A fourteen-episode story arc that made up the show’s second season, Neogenic Nightmare began airing in September of 1995. At this point, the series had already earned a reputation as the definitive version of Spider-Man despite dealing with absurd levels of censorship and executive meddling. It’s widely known at this point that this incarnation of Spidey was prohibited from ever punching his villains, and the studio even insisted that realistic guns should be replaced with futuristic laser weapons in order to avoid enraging concerned parents.
And that’s not even mentioning bizarre demands like setting up Hobgoblin as the original Goblin villain simply because the folks responsible for the toy-line had already prepared the character’s merchandise before scripts were even written.
At the end of the day. the show’s success mostly came down to John Semper’s excellent writing, with the (mostly) faithful recreation of the Spider-Man’s core principals and a handful of iconic storylines (coupled with an excellent cast behind the scenes) elevating a what was intended to be a kid’s show promoting ToyBiz products.
Naturally, the rampant cartoon censorship of the 90s couldn’t keep Semper from wanting to explore darker themes from his own favorite Spider-Man comics, and that’s how his team came up with a season-long re-imagining of iconic arcs like the Six-Arm Saga, The Mutant Agenda and even the first appearance of the Sinister Six. These stories would be enhanced with additional “dark” characters like Blade, The Punisher and even Morbius (though the latter had to exchange his vampiric blood-drinking for bizarre plasma-absorbing powers in order to conform to network guidelines).
If you haven’t yet seen it, the complete Neogenic Nightmare arc follows Spider-Man as he discovers that his mutation is progressing beyond his initial superpowers and threatening to turn him into a more monstrous hybrid. After developing extra arms, Spidey goes so far as to request help from both the X-Men and several other super-heroes as he becomes embroiled in a criminal conspiracy involving a team-up between some of his most iconic villains. The arc eventually introduces us to the show’s version of Man-Spider, which is depicted here as the monstrous final stage of the process which began when Peter was first bitten by that radioactive spider.
Personally, I think this werewolf-like addition to Spidey’s genetic curse is the best incarnation of Man-Spider that we’ve ever seen. This is because the six-armed body horror of it all adds even more weight to Peter’s decision to keep helping others regardless of what his powers may cost him, with the creature’s final rampage even giving the supporting cast a chance to help Spider-Man for a change. While I don’t hate the Morbius movie as much as some other comic fans, it’s a shame that Sony relegated that story to a solo film instead of later incorporating it into the Man-Spider saga like Neogenic Nightmare did.
Season two of the animated series ended up being an even bigger hit than the first, with fans loving the show’s take on an expanded Marvel Universe (which even included the ’90s X-Men cast) as well as the darker take on a more monstrous Spider-Man. That’s why it makes sense that the MCU’s return to street-level comic adventures would harken back to this particular storyline – especially since it appears that the Disney wishes to use the upcoming film as an opportunity to shine a light on other Marvel characters just like Semper did back in the day.
From what we can see in the trailer, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man appears to be going through his own additional transformations, including creepy fully black eyes and organic web-shooter, as well as the cocoon-building behavior previously seen in Marvel’s The Other arc in the comics. As I mentioned before, I doubt that the MCU will allow this particular cash cow to fully transform into a nightmarish spider freak that can scare away children, but there’s always a chance that the studio could surprise us with more horror elements. I’d also love to see the story explore Spidey’s mutation and use that as an excuse to formally introduce X-Men’s mutants into the MCU, especially since Sadie Sink is rumored to be playing Jean Grey in the flick.
However, even if Brand New Day doesn’t adapt as much of the Neogenic Nightmare as the promotional material has suggested, I’d argue that this particular season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series is still worth revisiting simply because it’s a great example of artists being able to work past network limitations in order to tell complex stories that approach full-on body-horror.
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