Film / Predator

It's about hunting.

"If it bleeds, we can kill it."

— Dutch

Predator is a 1987 sci-fi action/horror film directed by John McTiernan. Its groundbreaking special effects, big-budget action sequences, and unique premise contributed to its success, which ultimately spawned the multimedia Predator franchise.

Major Alan "Dutch" Schaeffer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his elite mercenary "rescue" squad are sent to retrieve a cabinet minister held hostage in a Banana Republic during the late years of the Cold War. After slaughtering a group of guerrillas, they discover the hostages are actually CIA agents and their employers have lied to them. But all of that takes a back seat once a mysterious, invisible enemy with weapons not of this Earth starts killing off Dutch's team one by one...

Predator is considered the manliest movie ever made, and it's hard to argue against the point: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, and Jesse Ventura had major roles in the film, and are all very big, strong guys who are prone to bleed and sweat (though one of 'em in particular ain't got time to bleed). On the other hand, the emphasis on big, sweaty men being macho with each other in the jungle also makes it one of the most unintentionally homoerotic films of all time, perhaps second only to Schwarzenegger's own Commando.

As a caveat to all of this, however, the film also puts the manliness towards a Genre Deconstruction, because it all vanishes in an instant when the soldiers are no longer the top predators.

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Predator ain't got time for tropes:

• After-Action Villain Analysis:
  Mac: [to Dillon, describing the encounter with the Predator] Those eyes... disappeared. But I know one thing, Major... [pause] I drew down and fired right at it. Capped-off two hundred rounds and then the Mini-gun; the full pack. Nothin'...nothin' on this earth could have lived... not at that range.
  [later]
  Schaefer: He uses the trees.
• Agent Scully: Dillon has the most trouble buying that anything non-human is after them until he sees it for himself.
• Aliens Are Bastards: The Predator came to Earth simply to play "safari" with sentient prey. It taunts its prey with their own words several times. Then there's the fact that upon being defeated by Dutch's trap, it tries to blow both of them up with a self-destruct, mimicking Billy's laugh as it does so.
• Aliens Speaking English: The Predator can record human speech, and plays some recordings back several times over the course of the film. It seems to either understand the speech or intuitively guess its meaning, given how appropriately it chooses those moments.
• All There in the Script: Although they are never mentioned in the final film, the full names of the main characters in the original script are Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer, Staff Sergeant George Dillon, Sergeant Mac Eliot, Sergeant Blain Cooper, Sergeant Billy Sole, Corporal Poncho Ramirez, and Corporal Rick Hawkins.
• AM/FM Characterization: The squad blares "Long Tall Sally" by Little Richard during the helicopter ride.
• Ammunition Backpack: Blain's gatling gun comes with an entire backpack magazine to feed it.
• An Arm and a Leg: Dillon has an arm blasted off by the Predator, still firing the gun it was holding while still attached.
• Art Imitates Art: Stan Winston was inspired by a painting of a Rastafarian warrior in the producer's office.
  "I saw that and I thought it was a great starting concept for the Predator. I started drawing and redesigning this alien character with quills that in silhouette would look like dreadlocks. During this same period of time, Aliens had come out, and Jim Cameron and I were flying to Japan to participate in a symposium about the movie. We were sitting next to each other on the plane, and I was sketching and drawing the Predator."
• Artistic License – Biology: A creature that sees in infrared hunting during the day in a tropical jungle, where the ambient temperature is above 100 F, would be unable to locate any human on sight. This was lampshaded by McTiernan in the commentary, when he explained how they attempted to film the Predator's vision live on set, and discovered that it was basically like trying to film in backlit fog. In the end, they had to do it in post. The justification in-universe is that the Predator's mask contains some kind of filter to focus on the heat it wants to see (that of living beings); in the climax there's a POV shot of the Predator taking its mask off, and the cool blue background transitions to everything being equally bright red.
• A-Team Firing: Played for Drama in a famous scene when the heroes open fire onto the titular monster firing thousands of rounds into a jungle and only manage to tag its leg. Justified by the fact that the creature is invisible.
• Audible Sharpness: Averted in a scene in the first act, as the protagonists are sneaking around the base of some bad guys, one of the heroes draws his knife to stab a bad guy. The act of drawing the knife makes no noise and the Mook is unaware of what is about to happen.
• Back in the Saddle: Dillon, who at one time has been one of Dutch's comrades but ended up a pencil pusher at the CIA. He goes along on the mission to save his CIA friends.
• Badass Boast:
  • Mac's threat to Dillon:
    Mac: You're ghosting us, motherfucker. I don't care who you are back in the world. You give away our position one more time, I'll bleed you, real quiet, an' leave you here. Got that?
  • Dutch's now famous declaration:
    Dutch: If it bleeds, we can kill it.
  • Before Dillon goes to fight the Predator:
    Dutch: You can't win this, Dillon.
    Dillon: Maybe I can get even.
• Bash Brothers: Blain and Mac served in the same unit in Vietnam.
• Battle Trophy: The alien hunter collects skulls (with the spinal cord still attached) from the humans it kills. The sequels show that it's a common practice and tradition of their race.
• Berserker Tears: Mac cries as he unleashes every bullet he has on the Predator following Blain's death.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Dutch uses stealth tactics to defeat the Predator, though it isn't enough to win outright.
• Being Watched: While Dutch and his team head for the rendezvous point, the Magical Native American Billy senses the titular creature watching them from the trees.
  Billy: [staring to where the Predator is watching from] Do you see anything? Up there?
  Dutch: Nothing. What do you see?
  Billy: [after a moment of silence] I guess it's nothing, Major. [continues walking, with Dutch looking at him in confusion]
• Better to Die than Be Killed:
  • Billy provides an interesting variation. Before he challenges the Predator to direct combat, he cuts his own body to deny the Predator the chance to claim first blood.
  • After the Predator is beaten and mortally wounded by Dutch, it decides to go out on its own terms by activating its Self-Destruct Mechanism to take out itself, its gear, Dutch, and a good-sized portion of the jungle.
• Big Bad: The Jungle Hunter Predator, a very dangerous and intelligent alien that aims to hunt and kill the main characters.
• Big "WHAT?!": Poncho says this ("¿Qué?") when Anna told him "the jungle came alive and took [Hawkins]".
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Dillon. He uses his Fire-Forged Friendship with Dutch to get everyone sent to South America to undertake a mission under false pretenses.
• Bittersweet Ending: Dutch and Anna escape and the Predator is killed, but Dutch's entire team has been killed as well. The forlorn look Dutch gives at the very end makes it perfectly clear this sacrifice is too much for him.
• Black Helicopter: Dutch and his team being inserted into the guerrillas' jungle hideout area by a genuine, CIA-owned UH-1N Huey, painted semigloss black. However, the two escorting Huey gunships, being owned by the local friendly government's army, are painted a more sensible jungle green.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: The Predator's gauntlet comes equipped with a pair of razor-sharp Wolverine Claws. They're even somewhat pliable, since the Predator wraps them around Dutch's head while sneaking up on him.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Predator has a fairly perverse sense of hunter's honour. Easy kills are skinned and strung up in the trees to rot. Billy is quickly dispatched when he challenges the Predator in direct combat (and also cuts himself to deny the creature the chance to claim first blood), but he apparently earns the creature's respect, and it takes his skull back to the ship as a trophy after it kills him. The Predator doesn't target Anna because she is unarmed and relatively helpless, but when the Predator catches Dutch unarmed, it strips away its gear to fight him on the same technological level, apparently considering him worth fighting hand-to-hand.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: A strange example from the film's production: Fox's insurance company demanded that Sonny Landham could only be cast if he was accompanied by a bodyguard. Not to protect him, but to protect everyone else from him.
• Booby Trap: Honestly, this film contains so many painstakingly intensive (and almost fetishistic) trap-building montages that it could be called Traps vs. Predator.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. The team reloads a few times, but they never seem to run low on magazines, either. Zigzagged with Blain's minigun Ol' Painless. The gun is fired for a ridiculously long time, far longer than would be realistic, before it actually does run out of ammo and is left behind. Played Straight in the attack on the rebels. None of the team reloads for the attack, even Dutch isn't shown reloading his single-round grenade launcher.
• Break the Badass: The first half of the film is used to build up the fact that the mercenary rescue team is made up of the six deadliest men on the planet. This makes the the human-hunting alien that much more formidable when it causes Mac to start undergoing a traumatic Sanity Slippage after having seen it, and Billy to bluntly admit that, for the first time in his life, he is genuinely terrified and bluntly says they were all going to die.
• Bring It: Dutch attempts to lure the Predator into a trap by standing in the (hidden) trap yelling "I'm here, come and kill me!" while making a beckoning gesture.
• Came from the Sky: The movie starts with the title character's ship landing in South America.
• The Cameo:
  • Bodybuilder Sven-Ole Thorsen appears as a Russian officer.
  • The helicopter pilot is the Predator himself, Kevin Peter Hall.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Hawkins starts off afflicted with this trope, though it doesn't help that he likes telling them to Billy, who seems to not possess a sense of humor at all. Averted later (somewhat) when he tells yet another vagina joke to Billy, who this time breaks character and lets loose a loud, hearty series of guffaws (which the Predator later mimics).
• Cat Scare:
  • Billy gets startled by a flock of vultures a second after seeing skinned human bodies hanging from the trees.
  • Blain hears rustling foliage and readies his gun, only to have it turn out to be a small animal. He rolls his eyes and turns away... then promptly gets killed by the Predator's plasma gun.
• Caught in a Snare: The team sets up a net trap to catch the Predator. It works, but not for long — it cuts itself free in seconds.
• Chameleon Camouflage: The Predator's camouflage armor works this way, and the monster knows how to make efficient use of it.
• Chase Stops at Water: Subverted: Dutch seemingly escapes the titular alien hunter when he falls into a river and down the Inevitable Waterfall... only for the creature to jump into the river right after him. And then double-subverted: the mud of the riverbanks covers Dutch, masking his body heat from the Predator's thermal vision, so the river helped him escape after all.
• Cherry Tapping: While future films established Predators as a Proud Warrior Race culture, in the first film the Predator disarming itself to pummel an unarmed Dutch just comes across as toying with its prey.
• Clifftop Caterwauling: Dutch, to attract the Predator into his trap.
• Coincidental Accidental Disguise: After Dutch is the only squad member left, he falls into a huge mud pit and finds himself staring down the Predator with no weapons completely helpless. As he waits for death, he is stunned to see the predator completely ignore him and go after a nearby wild animal. That's when he realizes that the alien is using infrared vision and that his mud bath completely obscured his body heat.
• Covered in Mud: Getting covered in mud is the standard method of avoiding thermal detection by the Predator.
• Cow Tools: The Predator is injured by Mac during the More Dakka scene, and uses a variety of alien Cow Tools to patch the wound. According to the director, these are based on actual veterinary tools.
• Creator Cameo: Right after the alien blows itself up, the helicopter pilot commenting on the explosion is Kevin Peter Hall, the man who wore the Predator suit.
• Crushing Handshake: When Dutch and Dillon meet after many years apart, they crush each other's hands in an competition of alpha male superiority. After the camera lingers on their bulging arms for a few seconds, Dillon finally surrenders.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Dutch and his team wipe out the guerrillas early in the film. Then the Predator hunts down and kills Dutch's team one by one while suffering hardly a scratch. (Aside from being shot and wounded by Mac after it killed Blain.) The battle between Dutch and the Predator also starts this way, as the Predator completely wrecks Dutch in hand-to-hand combat. Until Dutch manages to lure it into one of his traps.
• Cyanide Pill: The Predator carries a suicide Self-Destruct Mechanism. Considering it and its species fellows choose to hunt xenomorphs, and humans who would reverse-engineer any captured technology, it's probably a good idea.
• Dark Reprise: The movie has a pop-music version: As the commandos' helicopter is touching down in the jungle, the guys are full of macho bravado, slathering on camouflage makeup and trading humorous insults, while Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" blasts from a cassette player; the music is then abruptly cut off during the landing. Later in the movie, when the commandos are finally starting to realize that they're being hunted by a killer from outer space, Mac suffers some Sanity Slippage and begins heedlessly babbling "He saw his baby coming and he jumped back in the alley... We gonna have some fun tonight... have some fun tonight..."
• Dead Man's Trigger Finger: A variant — the titular creature blasts Dillon's arm off with its shoulder cannon. The arm falls to the ground, with the dead hand still pulling the trigger of the weapon it's holding and the gun still firing. Played straight a few moments later when the Predator stabs Dillon, his screams mingling with the stray shots from his final attempt to shoot the Predator.
• Death by Looking Up: Technically, the Predator dies moments later when it blows itself up, but it is fatally injured by Dutch's trap when it looks up just in time for a suspended log to drop on its head, crushing it and leaving it a broken heap that has only enough strength left to activate its self-destruct bomb and laugh.
• Despair Event Horizon: Mac goes through one of these after Blain's death. Billy seemingly resigns himself to death the moment he surmises something other than a human is hunting them.
• Dies Wide Open: Mac's eyes stare at Dillon after getting shot in the head by the Predator's plasmacaster.
• Digital Destruction: The "Ultimate Hunter" Blu-ray release relied so heavily on DNR that its version of the film boasts no grain — but Arnold and Carl Weathers now look more like they got a fine wax job in a few scenes (especially the beginning).
• Disc-One Final Boss: Our protagonists' trip into the jungle is first undertaken to rescue some men from a group of South American guerrillas. Soon after the camp is destroyed, a human-hunting alien shows up.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Many parallels have been made between this film and The Vietnam War: American troops fighting in a jungle against a stealthy, inscrutable fighting force.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Inverted. Hawkins' fumbling attempt to explain one of his jokes ("You see, because there's an echo...") is the only reason the joke works at all.
• Doomed Predecessor: Shortly after landing and finding a downed helicopter, the team discovers the disemboweled and flayed remains of another team of Green Berets who had also been sent to take down the guerillas.
• Dramatic Gun Cock:
  • Blain does this after letting "Old Painless" out of its bag, by cranking the multi-barrels left and right (this is pure Rule of Cool — in reality, doing this would probably fire off any rounds that were already chambered).
  • Dutch hears Anna cock her pistol as she's sneaking up on him, giving him time to smack her in the face with the butt of his gun.
• Dramatic Necklace Removal: Billy is shown nervously fingering a pouch on a cord around his neck (presumably a medicine pouch) when he senses the Predator near. During his You Shall Not Pass! scene, he throws away his rifle, rips the pouch from his neck, and wraps the cord around his hand so his palm will have a better grip on the machete he then draws to take the Predator on.
• Dwindling Party: The special forces team starts off with seven people and picks up an eighth with Anna. Then the killing starts. By the end of the film, there's only one of the original team left.
  • Hawkins: stabbed and gutted by the Predator, who hangs his body upside down in a tree;
  • Blain: shot in the back by the Predator;
  • Mac: shot in the head by the Predator, leaving his brains strewn all over the jungle floor;
  • Dillon: arm shot off by the Predator, then impaled;
  • Billy: Killed Offscreen by the Predator with unknown means and his skull taken as a trophy;
  • Poncho: shot in the head by the Predator, which in his case is Bloodless Carnage.
• Dying Smirk: After being defeated, the Predator activates a mini nuclear bomb in his suit and gives a booming laugh as Dutch runs to escape the blast area.
• Enemy Mine: Anna the rebel helps the team when she realizes they are all being hunted.
• "Eureka!" Moment: When the Predator approaches a defenseless Dutch, it passes him by. Dutch is puzzled by this slight, but then he looks at the mud covering him, and:
  Dutch: He couldn't see me...
• Evil Laugh: The Predator gives one hell of a menacing cackle before it dies, especially since his laugh is a hideously distorted mimic of Billy's laughter. It's probably safe to say that this laugh will haunt Dutch for the rest of his life.
• Fair-Play Villain: The Predator doesn't attack the unarmed, given they're not much sport; it spares Anna because she has no weapon. It later gives Dutch a better shot at him by stripping off its mask and shoulder cannon even though it had him at its mercy. It comes across more as sadism than honor in this context, however, as the Predator's subsequent beatdown of Dutch is almost entirely one-sided.
• Fast-Roping: Used at the beginning and justified because the helicopter doesn't have enough room to set down in the dense jungle.
• Flaying Alive: Sort of. The Green Beret team at the beginning was skinned, but given the Predator's methods of taking trophies, it was almost certainly done after death.
• Fooled by the Sound: Played to sinister effect, as the Predator's equipment can function as a high-tech "duck call", allowing the alien to imitate any sound, and any voice, to distract or unnerve his targets.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: Tubular bells begin to ring out as Billy turns back to face the Predator head-on.
• Gatling Good: The famous GE M134 minigun "Ol' Painless", wielded by Jesse Ventura, was the first handheld minigun ever to be used on film (or in any fiction for that matter). The actors who fired it had to be braced just off-screen, lest the recoil knock them on their ass. And that was just firing blanks. They also had to connect it to an external power source off-screen via a wire that went down his pants. Jesse himself has stated that while the gun was suspended from an off-screen crane in early takes, he later managed to fire it without the crane's help:
  Jesse Ventura: You just had to grit your teeth and hold on. It's like firing a chainsaw. It's fucking ridiculous. Why the fuck would anyone want to use something like that?
• Genre Deconstruction: Of the 80s action movies. Go to the "Analysis" page for details. This is definitely the first, and possibly only, movie where audiences get to see Arnold Schwarzenegger in a hand-to-hand fight where he gets absolutely thrashed.
• Genre Shift: The film starts off as the usual Cold War military shoot-em-up action flick with hostages and CIA spooks, but morphs into sci-fi action/horror halfway through. The moment the Predator takes his place as the antagonist of the film, almost all traces of the initial action film premise are gone, and the characters take a minute to realize it.
• Give Me a Reason: Anna (the captured guerrilla) tries to escape from Dillon, her captor. After she's recaptured, he says to her, "Try it again...please," a threat of what he'll do to her if she does.
• Good Guns, Bad Guns:
  • Dutch's squad is outfitted mostly with "upgraded" and/or modified Western military firearms. Dutch uses a modified M16 with a under-barrel M203 grenade launcher attachment, Billy also uses a modified M16 with an under-barrel pump-shotgun attachment, and Mac uses a short-barrel M60E3 light machine gun, while the rest of the squad initially use what are supposed to be MP5s (really heavily modified civilian HK94A3 prop guns). Big Guy Blain switches to a M134 Minigun prior to assaulting the rebel base, while Poncho uses a customized Grenade Launcher as a secondary weapon. Their use of typically "bad" "advanced" weapons is Justified across the board, as the movie runs on Rule of Cool and Rated M for Manly, while also establishing just how much of a threat the titular alien hunter is as it cuts down the squad members one by one.
  • The Banana Republic rebels naturally use a variety of AK and Dragunov variants, clear "bad" guns.
• Grudging "Thank You": After Mac saves Dillon from a scorpion crawling on his back by pinning it on his knife, Dillon pauses and resentfully says "Thanks".
• Guns Akimbo:
  • Poncho is briefly shown firing his HK94A3 in one hand and his Grenade Launcher in the other during the jungle shooting scene.
  • Dillon is shown wielding a HK94A3 in either hand as he trails Mac when the latter chases after the Predator.
• Gun Porn: Several of the scenes, particularly the famous deforestation sequence, were meant to ridicule this trope (the studio asked for more "gun shooting" scenes, so the director threw in an extended one where that's all the characters do).
• Halfway Plot Switch: The first act is dedicated to the mission to rescue Dillon's crew. Then the Predator attacks Hawkins.
• A Handful for an Eye: Anna throws a handful of leaves in Dillon's face while trying to escape.
• Hand Cannon: Dutch, Poncho, Mac, Billy, and Hawkins all carry Desert Eagle handguns, though no one ever uses them.
• Hand Signals: While traveling through the jungle and in combat, Dutch uses gestures (along with an occasional whistle) in lieu of speech to give information and instructions to the members of his hostage rescue team.
• Hand Waved: The fact that the Major in charge of the most trusted rescue squad has an incredibly strong Austrian accent strikes something of an odd note (yes, they're mercenaries, but they're all former soldiers. "Dutch" was stationed in Fort Bragg), and even more so when one considers that absolutely no one mentions it. He's affectionately called "Dutch", and that's the end of the matter. If he was supposed to have spent some time abroad... surely "Deutsch" would have been a better choice? Maybe "Dutch" is a slightly butchered pronunciation of "Deutsch"?
• Handy Cuffs: The captured rebel Anna has her hands tied in front of her, and takes advantage of it to escape. Somewhat justified because the team is traveling through steep, rough terrain, and she needs her hands in front of her to hold onto things and avoid falling.
• Hard-Work Montage: Two; the team preparing traps to catch the Predator, and Dutch for their one-on-one confrontation.
• Heal Thyself: The Predator has an advanced medkit that it uses on itself after Dutch's team opens up on it in a massive More Dakka barrage. It dodges out of the way at the beginning of the salvo by jumping into the trees, but still takes one bullet near its knee. Notably, the medkit isn't lasers that automatically regenerate tissue — it's more advanced, but has recognizable analogues to a human medkit. The Predator is not amused when it has to cinch the wound closed.
• Heat Wave: Anna informs the military that the titular creature only appears during the hottest years (possibly because it comes from a hot planet).
• Hellish Copter: Two of the guerrillas attempt to escape during the camp shootout, but are first shot by Dillon and then blown up by Dutch.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Anna has this when Hawkins is killed in front of her, splattering his blood on her.
  • "I'm gonna have me some fun... I'm gonna have me some fun..." Mac keeps it more or less together for the most part after Blain's death, but the Heroic BSoD doesn't kick in until Poncho is nearly killed, causing Mac to snap.
    Mac: I got you, motherfucker! I got you! [runs after the Predator] I'M COMIIING!!
• Heroic Sacrifice: Billy makes a last stand on a log bridge to give the rest of the team time to escape.
• Hold the Line: Billy Sole decides he’s tired of being hunted and makes a stand, machete in hand, giving his comrades time to escape to the chopper.
• Hungry Jungle: The film's portrayal of the jungle slowly moves towards this until the Predator invokes it full force by picking off the heroes one by one. As stated in the real examples, the actual shooting of the film was very tough due to the jungle conditions.
  "The jungle... it came alive and took him."
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: While widely considered the Trope Codifier, it's actually a subversion – not only are both sides of different species, but one is more advanced technologically than humans, much like humans are to actual Earth animals.
• I Call It "Vera": Blain's portable minigun "Ol' Painless".
• Improbable Cover: Dutch lives through a small nuclear explosion at close range because he ducked behind some cover.
• Incredibly Obvious Bomb: After Dutch mortally wounds the Predator, it activates its Super Wrist-Gadget which starts to beep in an increasingly loud manner, while red indicator bars start disappearing on the display and the Predator gives an Evil Laugh. Dutch doesn't have to be told he'd better run like hell...
• Inescapable Net: The mercenaries manage to catch the Predator hunting them in a net thanks to Dutch playing bait, but the alien promptly tears the net apart by firing his plasma caster.
• Inevitable Waterfall: After Dutch falls in the river, he immediately is shown falling down a series of waterfalls.
• Invisibility Cloak: The Predator uses advanced technology that renders it practically invisible.
• Ironic Echo:
  • When Dillon gets angry that no one's going to cross the border to exfiltrate them, Dutch reminds him that they are "expendable assets", just as Dillon said to Dutch when justifying him sending them out on false pretenses.
  • Both the squad and the Predator itself get scenes where they're firing blindly into the jungle in the vain hope of hitting their target.
• I Work Alone: Justified, as Dutch says that his team works alone; even though Dillon is an old Vietnam War buddy, he's not used to working with them, and Dutch and the others like it even less that he's in charge of the mission.
• Jump Scare: After coming out of his hiding place to draw out the Predator, Dutch is about to turn back when the (still invisible) Predator suddenly gets caught in their trap.
  Dillon: SHIT!
• Jungle Warfare: The movie takes place in an unnamed Central American country almost entirely covered by jungle. The fighting between Dutch's rescue team and the guerrillas involves standard infiltration tactics and a surprise attack. The battle against the title space alien uses tripwires, Claymore mines and physical traps reminiscent of the Vietnam War.
• The Ketchup Test: Possibly justified, considering Predators bleed fluorescent green.
• Killed Offscreen: Billy's death isn't seen, and only his scream is heard. Later, we see his body as the Predator takes his head and spinal cord as a trophy.
• Knight of Cerebus: The Predator's presence is dealt with very seriously, and drains quite a bit of the campy comedy out of the movie when it arrives. It's rather fitting, considering the team members are in their comfort zone against human opposition, hence their general levity, but once the Predator turns up and makes it clear they're outmatched, they find themselves in a much more dire and unfamiliar scenario.
• Laser Sight: A variation where the Predator uses a three-dot version to triangulate the aim of its shoulder cannon. From its point of view it appears as three red lines intersecting to form a triangle at the moment of firing.
• Late to the Punchline: Hawkins's telling of a post-battle old and dirty joke to Billy about his girlfriend's, ah, capacity leaves Billy looking bewildered for a good long pause. Hawkins desperately re-tells the punchline and then wanders off looking a bit crestfallen. A few more seconds pass... then Billy laughs heartily.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: Dutch prepares primitive weapons and covers himself with mud prior to fighting the title opponent.
• Lord British Postulate: The Predator may be formidable, but as Dutch sums it up with one single Badass Boast, "if it bleeds, we can kill it."
• Lured into a Trap: Dutch attempts this after retreating from the Predator by trying to lure it into an obvious choke point lined with sharpened wooden stakes. The Predator doesn't fall for the obvious Schmuck Bait, but in avoiding it unknowingly steps right underneath a counterweight trap he had previously constructed, allowing Dutch to spring it and crush the Predator.
• Macho Masochism: Just before fighting the title creature, Billy cuts a diagonal wound into his chest with his knife. It's meant to deny first blood to the Predator .
• Magical Native American: Billy senses the presence of the alien long before anyone else does. Justified as he is their scout. Still played straight, however, as Billy's reactions indicate that he somehow understands the otherworldly nature of their foe.
  Billy: I'm scared, Major.
  Poncho: Bullshit! You ain't afraid of no man.
  Billy: There's something out there waiting for us. And it ain't no man. [cocks his gun] We're all gonna die.
• Man on Fire: At least two guerrillas are shown being set ablaze. One tries to shoot Dillon, who shoots him dead. Later, after he and Dutch shoot a helicopter trying to escape and blow it up, one of the pilots gets out screaming before succumbing to the fire.
• Meaningful Echo: At the beginning of the film, Mac's friend Blain plays a tape of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" on the chopper flight to the drop zone. Much later, during Mac's Heroic BSoD, he repeats the lyrics in an insane mantra.
• Mildly Military: Aside from Dutch's Insistent Terminology that they are a rescue team. It's left ambiguous if the squad is a U.S. Military unit or an external mercenary unit occasionally brought in when plausible deniability is needed.
• Missed Him by That Much:
  • After Hawkins is taken by the Predator, the team go searching for his body. The camera pans upward, following a trail of dripping blood, to reveal his naked body strung from a tree above their heads.
  • On the villainous side — during the climax, the Predator climbs down through the trees to investigate the fire Dutch has set...and thanks to his being coated in mud to mask his body heat, it doesn't even realize it passed him by. Or rather, crawled right over him, in a rather harrowing shot where the audience is treated to the alien's camouflage effect moving across Dutch's mud-covered body.
• Molotov Truck: There's a truck up on blocks so its engine can be used to power the guerrilla camp. Dutch puts a Satchel Charge in the back, then uses his great strength to raise the truck so the blocks fall over and the truck goes careening downhill into the camp, whereupon he sets off the charge's radio detonator.
• Monster Delay: Only the view of the soldiers from the Yautja's eye-view is visible at first, then a shot of its own hand through its visor revealing that it has claws, then a view of the cloaked Yautja with his glowing yellow eyes, then close-ups of him patching up his wound, then a full-body view, and finally the infamous unmasking moment that reveals just what his "real face" looks like.
• Monster Threat Expiration: The eponymous monster systematically hunts down and kills an entire elite special forces unit, only losing due to a conveniently placed trap shortly before it could kill Dutch.
• More Dakka: And how! After Blain is killed, the team shred the jungle with all weapons at their disposal.
• Mr. Fanservice: Almost every male character is shirtless at some point, and all are well-built and muscled. Dutch in particular spends the climax of the movie shirtless.
• Neck Lift: The Predator grabs Dutch by the neck, picks him up, and presses him against a tree, examining him closely before administering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Never Give the Captain a Straight Answer: Played for Drama. Hawkins is the first member of Dutch's team to be taken by the alien, but all Poncho can find is a pile of internal organs rotting on the ground. When he returns to report, Poncho can barely comprehend what he has seen.
  Poncho: Major...you'd better take a look at this...
  Dutch: Did you find Hawkins?
  Poncho: I...I can't tell.
  [reaction shot from Dutch]
• No Animals Were Harmed: Notably averted. In his DVD commentary, director John McTiernan makes a point of noting that the scorpion that Mac stabs and later stomps was a real one. Also, earlier, one of Dutch's men kicks a vulture.
• No-Sell: In the final fight, Dutch tries punching the Predator in the face. It doesn't faze it one bit, and responds by giving Dutch three more punches.
• Nonindicative Name: As wouldn't be addressed until the fourth film in the franchise, calling the antagonist a "predator" is technically a misnomer. It doesn't actually eat the enemies it kills, just skinning them and taking trophies. Rather prominently, there isn't a Title Drop when they discuss the alien, instead referring to it as a hunter instead of a predator.
• Noodle Incident: At least two:
  • At the beginning, when Dutch and Dillon are introduced:
    Dillon: I heard about that little job you pulled off in Berlin. Very nice, Dutch.
    Dutch: Good old days.
    Dillon: Yeah, like the good old days. Then how come you passed on Libya?
    Dutch: We're not assassins.
  • When attacking the guerrillas:
    Poncho: Do you remember Afghanistan?
    Dutch: Trying to forget it.
• Not Enough to Bury:
  Dutch: Did you find Hawkins?
  Poncho: I... can't tell.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: It's an Arnie movie, so that's not much of a surprise really. See Hand Waved above as to why that's a bit strange here, though.
• Nothing but Skulls: In a subversion, the movie goes for nothing but skulls with the spinal cord still intact.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Predator is very slowly revealed, and at first all we see are its victims and first-person thermal images of it stalking the main characters. Unfortunately, the exact nature of the enemy is kinda spoiled for us immediately with the opening shot of a clearly inhuman spaceship.
• "Not So Different" Remark: By the end of the film, Dutch and the Predator are the only ones left, playing a primal cat-and-mouse game with traps. Upon its defeat, Dutch walks up to its fallen form and says...
  Dutch: What the hell are you?
  The Predator: What the hell are you?
• Not So Invincible After All: When they find evidence that the title Predator didn't escape their barrage of gunfire completely unscathed, the soldiers realize they're not dealing with an invincible supernatural threat, just a very, very dangerous mortal one. Cue one of the film's more famous quotes:
  Dutch: If it bleeds, we can kill it.
• Not So Stoic: The Magical Native American Billy is portrayed as The Stoic, but he out-of-character guffaws at a vagina joke in a Late to the Punchline moment.
• Not Worth Killing: Dutch is about to smash the mortally wounded Predator's head with a boulder but then changes his mind and apparently decides to leave the creature to die on its own. The Predator then demonstrates why following this trope can be a really bad idea, when he activates his self-destruct mechanism, and Dutch barely escapes the resulting explosion.
• Novelization: The film was novelised by Peter Monette. More details here.
• No Waterproofing in the Future: The eponymous alien has a cloaking device which conveniently shorts out whenever it comes into contact with water. A little odd when it's established that their species have been coming to Earth for hundreds of years and thus should've developed an upgrade. Of note is that the Predator wades in a river and the device keeps on working for a while, only shorting out well after the Predator drags itself to shore.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • While Blain is sneaking into the guerrilla camp, he nearly triggers the tripwire on a claymore mine.
  • In the finale, when the Predator smashes a log used by Dutch with its bare forearm.
    Dutch: Bad idea.
  • This is also Dutch's reaction when he realizes that those strange displays on the Predator's wrist-mounted computer are actually a countdown timer.
• Ominous Adversarial Amusement: After Dutch mortally wounds the title creature, it activates a device on its wrist and starts laughing at him. Dutch realizes the device is a Self-Destruct Mechanism and starts running.
• One-Word Title: Predator.
• Outrun the Fireball: The climax features an alien countdown, a spooky, ominous laugh, and an explosion with the power of a tactical nuke. This becomes even more ridiculous in the sequel, when Mike reveals that the self-destruct device is powerful enough to completely level a radius of 300 city blocks. Yet Dutch got away, despite only starting his run when the timer was almost up.
• Outside-Context Problem: Dutch and his team have everything under control, until an interplanetary hunter with technology, skills, and physical strength beyond any of them arrives.
• Outside-Genre Foe: It starts off as a war/action movie, with experienced soldiers going on what looks to them and the audience like another jungle skirmish, to fight some local guerillas. Then the hyper-advanced alien comes in, hijacks the plot, and turns the movie into a completely different genre. The characters go from seasoned soldiers on a mission to the playthings of something that sees hunting them as an enjoyable hobby, and couldn't be more confused about it.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Finding himself physically outmatched by the title antagonist, Dutch tries to goad it into a spiked trap he'd earlier set up. When the alien hunter proves to be too smart to fall for the ruse, a quick-thinking Dutch instead cuts the rope holding up the trap's heavy counterweight, dropping it on his adversary's head.
• Pen-Pushing President: Dillon fulfils this role. As a Colonel, he outranks everyone else on Dutch's team (Dutch included) and in his most famous line he says he's "been pushing papers for the CIA".
• Persecution Flip: An alien hunts humans like humans hunt animals, down to butchering, skinning, and taking their skulls as trophies. Not even the top training and weapons of the mercenary protagonists are a match to his superior technology.
• Pinned to the Wall: The movie has Dutch dealing with a random mook who attempts to sneak up on him, by flinging his machete with enough force to impale the mook into a nearby wall. Followed by the following line by Dutch:
  Dutch: Stick around.
• Pistol-Whipping: Dutch knocks out Anna by hitting her in the head with the stock of his rifle.
• Plot Armor: At one point, Dutch takes a shot from the Predator's shoulder cannon. While the same weapon effortlessly slices through other characters in gruesome ways, Dutch survives because the shot hit his gun instead, causing him only minor wounds.
• Private Military Contractors: Dutch and his team are mercenaries; however, they specialize in hostage and rescue operations, turning down assignments that only involve killing people. Accordingly, when Dutch learns that Dillon fabricated the hostage situation to trick Dutch into wiping out a rebel compound, the mercs are not happy.
• Punched Across the Room: At the beginning of the final fight between Dutch and the Predator, it gives him a backhanded slap to the face and knocks him back several yards.
• The Quiet One: The Native American tracker "Billy", whose contributions are things like "Something is out there." Poignant because, sure enough, something is out there.
• Rain of Blood: Subverted, as none of The Squad led by Dutch see it. As they search the jungle below, we see blood dripping on a leaf above their heads, then the camera pans up to reveal the naked body of their colleague hanging from the treetops.
• Rated M for Manly: It's a bunch of badass soldiers versus an alien hunter who's even tougher than they are.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: After Dillon captures the female Central American guerrilla Anna, she and other members of Dutch's rescue team repeatedly speak to each other in Spanish without any translation for the audience.
• A Real Man Is a Killer:
  • Despite being a mercenary, Dutch doesn't think so, and has turned down numerous high-profile jobs for this reason.
    Dutch: We're a rescue team, not assassins.
  • Dillon tells him that's not his decision to make.
    Dillon: You're an asset. An expendable asset. And I used you to get the job done, got it?!
    Dutch: My men are not expendable. And we don't do this kind of work.
• Red Herring: Early on in the film, much is made of the Predator's ability to mimic human speech. Specifically, it is shown analyzing and duplicating Mac's dialogue "Turn around. Over here." Over an hour of screen time later, Dillon hears Mac's voice beckoning him with the exact same words and tone. At this point, the entire terrified audience believes that the Predator is baiting him, only for it to turn out... it really was Mac after all. The Predator never does use that gambit. After Mac gets killed, the Predator taunts him with Mac's "any time" dialogue, so it is employed as psychological warfare. An early version of the script had the Predator trying to lure Dutch using Anna's voice (note that she's shouting at Dillon right before the "Turn around. Over here," scene), but Dutch is alerted when the Predator then uses Mac's voice.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Dutch's crack commando team is called in to rescue two missing cabinet ministers, who are suspected to be held hostage by a rebel force. Both of them are actually CIA, and the team had been lied to about their identities; both are already dead as well, and though he was hoping to rescue them the agent who set the team up quickly admits that he mainly wanted Dutch's unit to destroy the rebel base and kill all the soldiers in a preemptive strike. They do exactly that, except they mistakenly believe the rebels skinned the previous team alive and strung them up, making this a Roaring Rampage of Revenge as well... except the culprit behind the skinning was actually the Predator, so the rebels were Mis-blamed twice.invoked
• Rock Beats Laser: Notably averted. Despite exploiting the Predator's heat vision to his advantage, Dutch's low-tech approach fails to beat the alien. It's only when the latter decides to "even things out" by removing its multi-purpose helmet and shoulder gun that Dutch stands a slender chance. And even when he wins, it's in no small part due to luck and the Predator's strange blend of arrogance and honor. Also, Dutch quite literally grabs a large rock to use as a weapon at the close, but drops it when he sees the Predator has already been mortally wounded by his log trap.
• Sacrificial Lion: Most everyone that dies, Blain in particular.
• Sanity Slippage: Mac isn't all there during his final confrontation with the Predator. Billy's Senseless Sacrifice might be a result of this as well.
• Satchel Charge: Dutch uses a satchel charge to destroy some trucks used by the guerrillas in the opening battle.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Billy, the Magical Native American, does this several times throughout the movie. As does the Predator itself, but it has the advantage of technology.
• Screaming Warrior: Dutch lights a torch and screams into the night, beckoning the Predator to come to him.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Predator has a device on its wrist that can destroy an area of about 300 city blocks.
• Send in the Search Team: The movie begins with this premise, though those participating don't actually know it. Their mission — supposedly to rescue a cabinet minister shot down by guerrillas — is actually to find a special forces team that had been sent in to stop a guerrilla offensive.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Dillon and Billy. It's even lampshaded by Dutch and acknowledged by Dillon in the former case.
  Dutch: You can't win this one, Dillon.
  Dillon: I know, but maybe I can get even.
• Shirtless Scene: Dillon, Billy, Poncho, and Dutch all get at least one. Dutch acts as a Walking Shirtless Scene for the climax.
• Shoulder Cannon: The Predator comes equipped with a Plasma Caster, a laser-targeted shoulder-mounted plasma-cannon.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Dutch finds his special forces team has been duped by CIA agent Dillon:
  Dutch: What happened to you, Dillon? You used to be someone I could trust.
  Dillon: I woke up. Why don't you? You're an asset. An expendable asset. And I used you to get the job done.
• Skyward Scream: Dillon's dying scream is howled upwards as the Predator impales him.
• Sole Survivor: Blain and Mac were the only survivors from their platoon during The Vietnam War.
• Sound-Only Death: As the fleeing party is being pursued by the title creature, one of them, Billy, decides to perform a You Shall Not Pass! to let the others escape. As they continue along they hear his scream as the Predator kills him.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" being played by Blain on the chopper flight to the drop zone.
  • Unintentional: though Alan Silvestri's work usually sounds different from movie to movie, half the score here is very similar to his Back to the Future score, making it hard to take those parts of Predator seriously.
  • The sitcommy cast credits play over dark, pounding ending music, further adding to the Mood Whiplash.
• Stab the Salad: Dutch's prisoner Anna has her hands tied in front of her. He pulls out a knife and then slashes down with it...to cut the ropes securing her wrists and free her.
• Stab the Scorpion: Mac threatens Dillon with a knife, but uses it to stab a scorpion on his shoulder instead. This moment is the Trope Namer.
• Symbolic Weapon Discarding: After hearing Dillon's death scream and sensing that the eponymous hunter is on their trail, Billy tosses his gun off of the log bridge the survivors are escaping across. He draws his knife and symbolically cuts himself, denying the Predator first blood, while also pulling a Dramatic Necklace Removal with his medicine pouch. After calling out to him once, Dutch realizes that Billy is going to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to buy the others more time to escape. By discarding his gun, he ensures an up-close and personal fight with the Blood Knight alien. He is still Killed Offscreen, and the Predator takes his skull as a Battle Trophy.
• Taking You with Me: After being pulverized by Dutch's deadfall trap, the dying Predator tries to take its enemy out as well by initiating a self-destruct sequence that wipes out an enormous swath of jungle. This also prevents its advanced weapons and stealth tech from being recovered.
• Technologically Advanced Foe: Five heavily-armed military men begin hunting down a missing cabinet member. Suddenly, they're struggling against a technologically advanced alien hunter.
• Testosterone Poisoning: Blain's reaction when the others refuse to chew tobacco like him is to scoff at them and boast about the manly benefits of his tobacco habit.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • Dutch gives a sardonic "This is getting better by the minute," when Dillon tells him they have no backup after they cross the border.
  • Dutch's expression after the Predator walks around the death trap he was trying to sucker it into. Subverted seconds later, when he realizes that by moving around the spikes, the Predator put itself underneath the trap's deadfall weight, which Dutch promptly crushes it under.
• This Means Warpaint: Towards the end of the film, Dutch coats himself in mud as he prepares for the final confrontation, which also masks him from the Predator's heat vision.
• Thousand-Yard Stare:
  • Anna goes into shock after seeing the Predator kill its first (on-screen) victim.
  • Dutch has one in the exfiltration helicopter after everyone in his squad is killed and the Predator's subsequent suicide.
• Throwing the Distraction: During the final confrontation with the Predator, already hard to spot thanks to the mud covering him, Dutch throws a rock to distract the alien hunter and gets a chance to spear him.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: In this case, a machete. "Stick around!"
• Torso with a View: Blaine gets blasted by the Predator's superweapon. He doesn't survive, but his body doesn't seem to notice it's no longer with spine.
• Trail of Blood: At various times throughout the film, Dutch and the alien track each other by following bloodstains.
• Trap Master: Dutch's entire team is incredibly skilled at laying out exhaustive trap networks, from log deadfalls and net snares to tripwire-activated claymores. Dutch himself embodies this trope during his final battle with the Predator.
• Underequipped Charge: The Magical Native American Billy throws down his assault rifle and pulls out a really big knife to fight the title monster in a You Shall Not Pass!. It ends badly for him.
• Unintentional Backup Plan: Dutch's plan to lure the titular menace into a deadly knife-trap fails when the Predator spots what he's up to and simply goes around it. Just as it's about to kill him, Dutch notices it's standing right under the trap's counterweight... a giant log.
• Vagina Dentata: When the Predator finally reveals his face, the viewer gets a good look at what even cable television movie commentary describes as a toothed vagina. Hence the heroes of both films call him "pussyface".
• Video Credits: In a big contrast to all the preceding tension (and the action theme playing in the background), the actors appear smiling and laughing, except for a very scared Dutch.
• Villain of Another Story: The Soviets and the guerrillas they were advising are the initial foes for Dutch's team and the CIA to take down before the Predator steps in.
• Vine Swing: While Dutch is hiding in a tree, the Predator climbs by him, so he uses a vine to swing to another tree.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Dutch is bare-chested for the climax.
• Wham Shot: Throughout the early portion of the movie, the group is shadowed by something watching them through thermal vision. After raiding the insurgent base, Mac stabs a scorpion that was crawling on Dillon. After wiping it off and the group leaving, their mysterious stalker approaches to examine the scorpion, a monstrous clawed hand reaching out to pick it up, revealing that the stalker is definitely not human.
• "What Now?" Ending: How will Dutch explain the death of his entire team? That an alien killed them then blew itself up and half the rainforest? What if the government doesn't believe him? What if they do? Both Predator 2 and Predators indicate that the story was taken seriously but obviously hidden from the public. The final fate of the survivors remains unclear in light of this.
• The Worf Effect: The entire team takes out an entire base full of guerrillas so that when the Predator starts killing them, it's clear how dangerous it is.
• Worthy Opponent: The Predator recognizes Dutch as one, taking off its plasmacaster and mask for a one-on-one fight at the end.
• Wrecked Weapon: The Predator shoots Dutch's rifle, blowing it in half.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: The team are very competent commandos in a 1980s action film. Unfortunately, the movie turns into a sci-fi slasher film around halfway through.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Billy makes his last stand against the Predator to give the rest of the team a chance to escape. Sadly, this doesn't end well for him.
• "You Used to Be Better" Speech: Dutch and his hostage rescue team are hired to retrieve a cabinet minister and his aide from enemy hands. When they find the men, Dutch discovers that they're actually CIA spies, and the real purpose of hiring the team was to use it to destroy a rebel military encampment. Dutch challenges his old friend CIA operative Dillon, who tricked him into accepting the job.
  Dutch: What happened to you, Dillon? You used to be somebody I could trust.

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