Editorials
Looking Back at the Bonkers Video Game ‘Predator: Concrete Jungle’ [Based on the Hit Film]
There are actually a lot more Predator games than most people seem to realize. It’s not that surprising once you consider that the titular creature has become an iconic character rivaling the likes of the Universal Monsters, but folks tend to only remember its crossovers with the Alien franchise when it comes to gaming.
Nevertheless, since the mid-80s, the Predator has been constantly present in interactive media, even gaining a completely new online game through IllFonic’s Predator: Hunting Grounds late last month. Today, however, I’d like to take a step back and discuss one of the weirdest interactive experiments of the franchise’s past, a flawed but unique gem known only as Eurocom’s Predator: Concrete Jungle.
Strangely enough, this genre-bending 2005 title is influenced a lot more by the under-appreciated Predator 2 than Schwarzenegger’s original encounter with the extraterrestrial hunter. Instead of mercenary-infested tropical rainforests, Concrete Jungle boasts sprawling urban environments more reminiscent of a futuristic New York rather than anything in South America. Nevertheless, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, as Concrete Jungle’s setup to this new environment is a curious thing in and of itself.
The game’s story actually begins in 1930s “New Way City”, as folks have been dealing with gang wars in the middle of a heatwave. The situation is only made worse by the presence of a certain “New Way Devil”, an otherworldly being hellbent on eliminating crime boss Bruno Borgia. Here, players take control of an unlucky Predator whose hunting trip is about to go terribly wrong.
You can’t say the game doesn’t have style!
To make a long story short, our protagonist is wounded (earning the nickname “Scarface” in the process) and is forced to enable the self-destruct function of his cloaked starship. Unfortunately, he’s too far away from the blast to be obliterated alongside most of the city, making him a pariah amongst his fellow Predators.
And so, 100 years of exile later, the game truly begins as Scarface is informed that New Way City has been rebuilt as Neonopolis, where Borgia’s descendants have been using technology recovered from his little hunting accident to capture and experiment on other Predators. Returning to Earth to set things right, players embark on a perilous journey through futuristic landscapes, taking down criminals and collecting blood-soaked trophies from an assortment of grandiose levels, eventually squaring off against Xenomorphs, cyborgs and horrific genetic hybrids.
I don’t know about you, but to me, this sounds like the setup to the greatest Predator movie never made. The sheer batshit insanity of it all only makes sense once you realize that the game was written by comic book auteur Grant Morrison, who’s best known for his new-age take on titles like Animal Man and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.
Regrettably, the story and setting are the only stars of the show here, as the rest of the game doesn’t quite live up to the promises made by such a wild plot. While the ambition behind this title is commendable, with platforming, third-person shooting, stealth sections and hand-to-hand combat existing side-by-side in sprawling levels, the truth is that nearly every aspect of the game’s mechanics feels clunky and unpolished.
The controls are hard to get used to, the animations are unresponsive and there’s a constant feeling that the developers didn’t have a unifying vision while programming these levels. In theory, roaming around gigantic (for the time) cityscapes as a camouflaged Predator, collecting spinal cords and brutally murdering gangsters, should be a movie buff’s wet dream, but in practice, it’s really just a lot of boring ledge-grabbing in dull gray environments as you occasionally stealth attack a guard and watch one of a handful of possible executions.
Seems like they won’t be getting to the chopper.
That being said, playing around with the Predator’s massive arsenal can be fun, and I never got tired of hilariously skewering enemies to the wall with futuristic spears. The extreme violence is really entertaining, as Scarface murders goons and civilians alike as casually as Jason Voorhees. I’ll also admit that, towards the end of the experience, once you have all possible weapons and have gotten used to the clunky controls, it’s easier to forgive the game’s flaws and just zone out as a lone alien hunter out to regain his honor.
Even then, while the story is undeniably entertaining, some of the dialogue is downright laughable and Morrison was really milking that M-rating, as this is one of the sleaziest Predator stories out there. Hell, there’s even an enemy type that walks around in skimpy outfits, using reverse-engineered cloaking technology to hide their high-tech armor (not to mention a plethora of racial and sexual stereotypes that randomly pop up throughout the story).
Moments like these make the game feel like a schlocky B-movie, but in all honesty, I think that’s the most appropriate way of approaching Concrete Jungle. I can’t quite recommend it as an actual good game, but there’s so much interesting stuff to see here that it’s at least worth searching for a let’s play of the title.
I have conflicting memories of playing this on the PS2 back in the day and really wanting to love it because, in theory, it had everything that a Predator fan could want. I guess the running theme here is that everything about the game works far better on paper than in reality, but that doesn’t quite diminish its accomplishments. In fact, I’d love to see some new studio tackle a remake, or at the very least a remaster of the title.
But why stop there? A Just-Cause-styled open world sequel set in the deep jungle, with fortified military bases and villages to explore could also be incredibly entertaining. With more time and a modern toolset, I think it would be a lot easier to iron out all of the little quirks and finally deliver what Eurocom promised us fifteen years ago. For now, however, I think I’m ready to check out IllFonic’s new take on the franchise; though I doubt that game also boasts cyberpunk pimps and drug-dealers.
Auteur Filmmaking is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days in reference to big name directors like Quentin Tarantino and even Wes Anderson, but the truth is that film is a collective medium, and no one person can be responsible for every single aspect of a particular production. However, the smaller a film’s budget, the bigger the individual impact of every creative decision behind it – and the easier it becomes to identify a genuine auteur.
This isn’t necessarily a judgement of value, as blockbuster filmmaking comes with its own challenges and a good movie remains a miracle regardless of how big the crew is, but I’ve always been more interested in soulful b-movies produced by handfuls of passionate artists than blockbusters backed by creative armies.
That’s why I love exploring low-budget franchises that never left the hands of their original creators, as you really get to know the artists involved with these flicks and can accompany their evolution over a period of time. With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to join me in this multi-part series as we look into a vampire saga helmed by one of the most fascinating auteurs of the 1990s. Naturally, I’m referring to Ted Nicolaou’s criminally underrated Subspecies!
The Birth of an Unlikely Horror Franchise
A proud graduate of the University of Texas’ Film program, Nicolaou got his start in the industry as a sound technician working on Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. From there, the filmmaker would go on to work for notorious indie producer Charles Band, the founder of both Empire Pictures and Full Moon Productions. According to Nicolaou, Band would usually contact him with an offer to direct a feature after more prominent filmmakers, such as the late, great Stuart Gordon, had already refused, meaning that his projects tended to have lower budgets and more inexperienced crew members.
The plans for Subspecies began almost immediately after the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, with screenwriter David Pabian turning in an initial draft of the film after a Romanian producer contacted Band and explained that Romanian tax incentives could cover the cost of film production there so long as Full Moon took care of the post-production process. Since Stuart Gordon was unwilling to travel to Romania, Ted Nicolaou ended up taking over the picture.
However, while the financial incentives meant that this Romanian-American co-production could look and feel much more expensive than it really was, with Nicolaou scouting for locations in advance and selecting real castle ruins to be featured in the movie, the director was soon faced with an incredibly difficult shooting process. In interviews, Nicolaou would later describe the experience as something of a nightmare, with language barriers and the generalized distrust of capitalist outsiders sabotaging many of the team’s plans for the film.
In fact, the script, which had already been altered by Band, ultimately had portions of it rewritten by both Jack Canson and Nicolaou himself in an attempt to adapt the story to their unique limitations.
Radu Is One of Horror’s Greatest Underrated Villains
In the finished film, which was released directly to video in 1991, we follow a pair of American anthropology students, Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and Lillian (Michelle McBride), as they reunite with their Romanian colleague Mara (Irina Movila) in her native land. The group intends to study the folklore surrounding the secluded town of Prejmer, but their research is cut short by the return of Radu Vladislas (Anders Hove) – the evil son of a vampire king (Angus Scrimm) who had previously established a truce with the region’s human residents. It’s now up to Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) to protect the girls from a fate worse than death as the power-hungry vampire seeks to control a magical artifact known as the Bloodstone.
Right off the bat, you may have noticed that the film’s premise sounds decidedly old-fashioned when compared to other vampire movies from around the same time. While the 1990s saw the rise of cool-looking bloodsuckers with badass elements borrowed from Westerns, as well as the sexy aristocrats of Anne Rice’s stories, Subspecies has a lot more in common with Nosferatu and the Hammer Horror series than any of its contemporaries.
This is both a blessing and a curse, as the film falls victim to overly familiar genre tropes while also standing out as a rare example of a ’90s vampire flick that isn’t afraid to flex its muscles as a Creature Feature. In fact, I’d argue that the presence of age-old clichés is a small price to pay when confronted with one of the most compelling vampire antagonists in all of cinema.
Named after Vlad the Impaler’s real-life brother, Anders Hove’s Radu is such a fascinating character and the main reason why Subspecies is still worth watching 35 years later. From his animalistic mannerisms to the joy he feels in simply existing as a chaotic creature of the night, and that’s not even mentioning the iconic makeup that almost certainly inspired the undead from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Radu is a hypnotic presence harkening back to a time when audiences didn’t mind purely evil villains that couldn’t be redeemed through tragic backstories or sex appeal.
Gothic Atmosphere on an Indie Budget
Of course, the film’s Romanian setting and authentic art direction do a lot of the heavy lifting whenever Radu isn’t around. From the masked festivals of the village to the visually interesting selection of local extras, Subspecies’ multicultural elements help it to stand out when compared to similar flicks from the ’90s.
That being said, Nicolaou’s unique eye for special effects and exciting action sequences – as well as Vlad Paunescu’s excellent cinematography – make the movie a delight for fans of expressionist cinema and old-timey gothic horror. While the crew is obviously dealing with limited resources, many of the flick’s blemishes (such as the odd stop-motion demons that serve Radu) end up feeling more like charming idiosyncrasies than actual flaws.
I’d argue that the only real issue here is pacing, as there are long stretches of film where the protagonists are simply bumbling around without realizing what’s really going on around them. Thankfully, the gorgeous visuals and surprisingly effective soundtrack usually make up for this. Besides, how can you dislike a movie where shotgun shells are loaded with rosary beads and our lead vampires duke it out in a dramatic swordfight that would feel out of place during the golden age of Hollywood?
Your overall enjoyment of Subspecies will mostly depend on whether or not you find low-budget corner-cutting and janky practical effects charming rather than distracting, but I know I’ll keep coming back to this Full Moon feature again and again in the future.
That being said, while this first movie is worth revisiting by its own merits as the birth of an indie horror icon, I’d like to invite you to join us as we look into the cult sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II soon.
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