Do you consider 1987 PREDATOR a horror movie

[Riv86672]

This stems from a conversation I had today as to whether or not PREDATOR was a horror movie. I’m undecided but admit it played well as one, w. the isolation, the mystery creature, the mounting tension and fear, etc. It just happened the characters were well armed and the final girl was Arnold.

IMDB categorizes the movie as “Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi”, while Rotten Tomatoes goes w. “Action & Adventure, Horror”, so there seems to be some wiggle room.

I’m just interested in your opinions, though, out of curiosity.

[caj]

A few years ago I had a nephew in the military and he was overseas. I was trying to think of something to send him to read so I made a list of my 50 favorite scary movies.

The list had the year it came out plus a small paragraph about the plot. He not only loved it but he said all his buddies loved it too.

Predator ranked at #10 on my list. So yeah I consider it a horror film.

[Kirby101]

No, I consider it a monster movie.

[Riv86672]

A few years ago I had a nephew in the military and he was overseas. I was trying to think of something to send him to read so I made a list of my 50 favorite scary movies.

The list had the year it came out plus a small paragraph about the plot. He not only loved it but he said all his buddies loved it too.

Predator ranked at #10 on my list. So yeah I consider it a horror film.

Cool, ty for the great reply!

A list like yours would’ve come in handy during my own deployments...

[Totoro Man]

gotta agree with Kirby101 on this one. it's a pretty straight-forward monster movie when you break down the plot points and how the narrative flows.

I would sooner call "First Blood" a horror movie than the first "Predator" movie.

but at LEAST the first film in both of these franchises actually worked... although I have to admit I liked Danny Glover in Predator 2 even if I thought the film itself was mediocre.

[Otto Gruenwald]

It's a slasher, but instead of the victims being teenagers they're action heroes.

[tg1982]

I just consider it a sci-fi action movie (a great one), along the lines of the Terminator franchise. Or Starship Troopers.

[caj]

Cool, ty for the great reply!

A list like yours would’ve come in handy during my own deployments...

Thanks.

Yeah, I spent a lot of time on it. I did the rankings in reverse order with #50 coming first and building up to #1. I would read the plot synopsis in Wikipedia or IMDB but would tweak it with my own words to describe the films. It was a lot of fun creating it so I was real happy that my nephew and his buddies got such a kick out of it. The last time I saw him, he said he still had the list so it traveled with him everywhere he was deployed and all the way back home.

[Riv86672]

^^^That’s very VERY cool...!

It's definetly got quite a few disturbing kills, even compared to some slasher movies. The fate of Hopper and his team, for example, is particularly horrific; and we graphically see what happens with Billy.

The sequels actually seemed to decrease a lot of the gore of the first one.

^^^I agree w. that.
The pacing in the first movie really was skewed towards building horror & suspense.

[Cyke]

I consider it monster/action myself rather than horror, but it follows quite a number of horror tropes.

Now, if it was Arnold and his team vs. the Predator in an old cabin in the woods... (jk)