Movies
‘The Predator’ Will Have a “Wicked Sense of Humor”
One of the more exciting pieces of The Predator ensemble is Sterling K. Brown, who was flawless in FX’s “The People v. OJ Simpson”. He’s next bringing his acting chops to Fox’s Predator remake, which is currently filming in Vancouver under the direction of Shane Black.
Black is the genre king of character development, bringing some of the best characters to life in films like Predator and Die Hard, to the more recent Iron Man 3. According to Brown, Black has given The Predator some life, injecting what he calls a “wicked sense of humor” into the sequel.
“Shane has his whole take on it and it’s very different than the original Predator,” Brown tells EW. “It’s got a really wicked sense of humor to it, which I love about it. And it’s got a real camaraderie amongst the main characters that I think folks will be attracted to. That’s pretty much all I can say.”
What Brown is explaining is that the film has an ensemble who are both fun and relatable. Many films have tried to emulate the films of the 80’s, but haven’t been able to crack the code. It’s not an easy feat to make all of a film’s characters likable, especially because it not only takes excellent writing but also casting to perfection. One false move and it all falls apart. If anyone can pull this off, however, it’s Shane Black…
“I’m a huge fan of ‘Predator’, and, of course, everybody loves Jesse the Body [Ventura] and Arnold [Schwarzenegger] and Carl Weathers and Bill Duke,” added Brown. “My friends at Stanford used to tease me — being the dark-skinned African-American man that I am — they’d say, ‘Yo, man, you’re going to start getting all [those] Bill Duke roles when you get older.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t look anything like Bill Duke, you guys can kiss my ass.’ So then I booked this movie and I told them and they’re like, ‘Dude, do you even realize that you’re now Bill Duke???’ And I had to go tell them to kiss my ass all over again.”
Edward James Olmos (“Dexter”, “Battlestar Gallactica”) recently joined the cast, which includes Boyd Holbrook, Room breakout Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Trevante Rhodes, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, Yvonne Strahovski and Olivia Munn. Jake Busey also has a role, following in his father’s footsteps.
The movie once again features unsuspecting humans who slowly realize that fierce hunter-aliens are in their midst, this time in what could be a suburban setting.
Black is directing from a script he co-wrote with Fred Dekker.
Fox has already staked out a August 2, 2018, release date.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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