Movies
‘Predator: Badlands’ Will Introduce Fully Developed Yautja Language
Since 1987’s Predator, we’ve only seen and heard glimpses of the complex Yautja language as brief teases of their higher intelligence. That’s changing with Predator: Badlands; the newest entry will introduce the fully developed Yautja language.
Predator: Badlands introduces an unlikely Yaujta warrior in Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), an underdog who forges an unorthodox alliance with Weyland-Yutani synth Thia (Elle Fanning) in his quest to hunt the most dangerous game. It’s a scenario that demands communication, despite a clear language barrier.
That proved to be one of the more challenging aspects of telling Dek’s story.
Producer Ben Rosenblatt explained to Bloody Disgusting during our visit to the Predator: Badlands set, “We went through a lot of different versions of what that might be, and what we’ve done here is hire someone to actually create the language of Yautja. That guy’s name is Britton Watkins, and he came to us through a guy named Paul Frommer, who created Na’vi for Avatar.”
“It’s been really interesting on this one in particular, because pretty much most of what has been invented in the movies for sure has just been based on necessity, “Rosenblatt continued. “That’s both for the written language and for anything vocalized. Britton took as much as possible, took everything that had come before, and said, ‘Okay, let me try to synthesize this into a working language.’ It is not a task I would have been able to do, but I am so happy he exists and that he did it. We have Dek speaking in Yautja, subtitled, and we have Thia, Tessa, and the other synths speaking in English. The device that we’re using and you’ll see in the film is a universal translator, and basically it means that you hear your own language, whoever’s speaking it. So when she’s speaking to him, he’s hearing Yautja. When he’s speaking to her, she’s able to understand it in English.”
Props master Matt Cornelius revealed that Watkins’ work extended to the Yautja weaponry and translating its signature glyphs.
For example, “We gave him [info] for the cryo grenade, and then he would give them the design, and then he would say, ‘All right, what does it do?’ Then he would come up with the runes, so he would actually tell us what to put on it. He would do all the translation. There’s a family crest that we see on a lot of these. But then all these other runes, look, I couldn’t tell you exactly what they mean, but they’re things like, ’60 meters range.’ ‘Activate before throwing.‘ ‘Stand well back.‘ ‘Don’t get in the way of this.'”
Prepare to get fully immersed in Yautja culture when Predator: Badlands releases in theaters on November 7, 2025, in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, RealD 3D, Cinemark XD, 4DX, ScreenX, and premium screens everywhere.
Hollywood tends to learn all of the wrong lessons when confronted with an indie success story that doesn’t follow the established rules of the industry. For instance, instead of accepting that the massive success of Backrooms has more to do with Kane Parsons’ individual talent as an established artist who has been producing high-quality videos since the pandemic (combined with the popularity of liminal horror among younger audiences), producers are now trudging through old Reddit posts looking for the next viral meme that studios think might have the potential to be turned into a cash cow.
This is by no means a new phenomenon, and I think one of the most pertinent examples of Hollywood misunderstanding what makes a movie work has to be the aftermath of The Blair Witch Project. While Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s genre-defining movie proved that POV camerawork and lo-fi aesthetics can captivate mainstream audiences when backed by a genuinely compelling story, there was a sudden trend of filmmakers attempting to appear hip by incorporating found footage into their films as if the occasional presence of diegetic recordings was enough to make a movie seem “hip”.
That’s why the 2000s were such a frustrating period for found footage fans, as the genre was still mostly relegated to obscure indie productions while studios only teased us with the format’s narrative potential. And yet, talented filmmakers can tell compelling stories under any circumstances, and this is how we get to the weird world of found footage bonus features produced alongside traditional movies.
Diegetic filmmaking may not necessarily be easier than conventional camerawork (it’s a lot harder to simulate reality without the added toolbox of cinematic editing), but it’s certainly a hell of a lot cheaper. That’s why it makes sense that plenty of high profile projects invested in found footage bonus content in order to add value to their home video releases – a once profitable industry that is sorely missed in the current media landscape.
The irony here is that many of these found footage extras were a little too good when compared to their promotional origins. With that in mind, I’d like to take a closer look at three examples of found footage bonus features that were better than the movie they were meant to enhance!
3. Halloween: Resurrection (2002): WebCam Special
I might lose some of my horror cred for admitting this, but Halloween: Resurrection was actually the first Halloween film I ever saw. Thankfully, this misguided entry didn’t scare me off from watching the other movies in the series, but even as a teenager I recognized that the flick’s premise of an online streaming show gone wrong had some merit to it – it’s just too bad that these ideas were never fully realized in the feature itself.
It was only years later that I discovered the fabled WebCam Special on Resurrection’s physical media release and got the film I had always wanted. This 41-minute cut of the film is by no means a masterpiece, but excluding everything except for the found footage elements of the production somehow transforms this ill-advised sequel into a deeply unsettling exercise in voyeuristic cinema.
In fact, I’d argue that the long takes of Michael simply moving through the house without calling attention to himself are much closer to John Carpenter’s original vision of the bogeyman than any of the exaggerated sequels that depict The Shape as something more akin to a superpowered Jason Voorhees. It’s just a shame that the franchise would never explore this format again.
2. Believers (2007): The Quanta Group Videos
Daniel Myrick’s Believers is by no means a bad movie, with this direct-to-video thriller following a duo of paramedics who find themselves captured by a deranged death cult inspired by all the worst aspects of Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate. Unfortunately, the Blair Witch alumni’s low-budget exploration of religious madness was quickly forgotten simply because most people didn’t bother to engage with the other half of the experience by exploring the DVD menu.
Within the disc’s extras, Myrick actually included in-universe interviews and orientation videos meant to expand the Quanta Group’s backstory and beliefs. These found footage recordings greatly enhance The Believers by providing much-needed context for some of the film’s scariest moments. There’s even a wonderfully creepy epilogue sequence here as another group explores the cult’s dilapidated compound after the events of the film.
While it’s baffling that this material didn’t make it into the movie itself through in-universe cutaways (especially IO’s darkly humorous interview), watching it alongside Myrick’s film turns the whole thing into a highly compelling multi-media experience.
1. Dawn of the Dead (2004): The Lost Tape & Special Report: Zombie Invasion
I’ve always considered 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake to be Zack Snyder’s best film (though most of the flick’s qualities are the result of James Gunn’s excellent script) even if it fails to capture the social anxieties of Romero’s 1978 original. However, this apocalyptic production is also the perfect example of an expensive project being overshadowed by the low-budget bonus features on its own home video release.
You see, the Dawn of the Dead DVD actually boasts two separate found footage short films that I find much scarier than the movie they’re marketing. The Lost Tape: Andy’s Terrifying Last Days Revealed is a somber video diary written by Gunn and starring Bruce Bohne as the ill-fated Andy – a minor character in the main film who becomes trapped in his own gun store when the zombies attack. Then there’s my personal favorite, Special Report: Zombie Invasion, a fully simulated news program starring Babylon 5’s Richard Biggs (as well as Bruce Boxleitner) that chronicles the spread of the undead virus.
Not only do these bonus features add context to Snyder’s film, but I’d argue that they make for a better standalone viewing experience than the so-called “main attraction”. Special Report honestly feels like a charming low-budget adaptation of Max Brooks’ World War Z novel (despite coming out a couple of years before that book was published), and I adore how The Lost Tapes turns Andy into a genuinely tragic figure.
These obviously aren’t the only found footage extras worth revisiting (for instance, I adore that Skull Island mockumentary that accompanied the special edition of Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake), but I figured that the three aforementioned projects could provide us with a snapshot of a curious moment in popular culture where found footage could still impress viewers despite not being quite as respected by the studio system.
That being said, don’t forget to sound off in the comments below if you can think of any other found footage bonus features that deserve a shout-out! After all, I’d love to see this trend of diegetic extras make a comeback in modern times – especially where found footage-heavy movies like Backrooms are concerned.
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