With the release of Predator prequel Prey now upon us, I rewind and reflect on where it all started. Now GET TO THE CHOPPA!

In an age so consumed with IPs and franchises, it’s somewhat quaint to look back at just how staunchly star-focused the 1980s was. Of course, we still have huge stars these days, and the likes of Tom Cruise and Dwayne Johnson still hold a certain degree of power over the box office, however, it’s nothing compared to the decade that gave us Stallone, Van Damme, and, of course, Schwarzenegger.

As time went by and decades past, these hulking luminaries would go on to star in more than their fair share of sequels, prequels, and spinoffs for brands they’d helped establish, yet, for many fruitful years, they simply were the franchise and the primary reason people around the world flocked to cinemas in the first place.

Undoubtedly, as one of the leaders of this testosterone-fuelled pack, Arnold Schwarzenegger would rapidly grow to dominate 80s action cinema, a governance that would hold strong well into the 90s and well into my movie-obsessed adolescence. While there’s certainly a discussion to be had regarding the overall quality of his output through the years, at the height of his powers, there’s little doubt that the man was pure box office gold.

Arriving seven years into the decade and with his star rapidly climbing, there is perhaps no greater example of Schwarzenegger’s 80s star swagger than Predator, a film that would perfectly blend the meaty Austrian actor’s action excesses with tense, gory horror, making a tidy box office profit as it went and doing its best to infiltrate my nightmares for years to come.

Being completely honest, there remains something about Predator that still absolutely terrifies me to this day. While it doesn’t quite have the primal, cerebral terror of the Alien films and never really tips over into all out horror, there is just something deeply unnerving about the way the Predator stealthily goes about his brutal business that continues to chill me to my very core even now.

Whether it’s the alien’s dominant look, its cloaked approach to stalking prey, or its intensely creepy heat vision, director John McTiernan manages to craft a truly intimidating adversary for Schwarzenegger’s Dutch and his team, one that’s every bit as menacing now as it was back in 1987.

Looking back, Predator feels like a perfectly preserved slice of time and place, and there really is no other era that this film could exist. It is so quintessentially 80s and so utterly tethered to its star that it takes on an oddly brutal charm and considering the places we’ve gone to with the franchise since, the ruthless simplicity of Predator’s execution despite all its heightened excesses, is something truly commendable.

Although the franchise shifted focus away from Dutch and more towards his bloodthirsty adversary some time ago, there’s little doubt that the first instalment in the series is every inch an Arnie action vehicle. Together with The Terminator, Predator is without a doubt one of Schwarzenegger’s defining 80s roles, and looking back on it now, it’s just a joy to watch the star have a whale of a time chewing the scenery, the script, and any cigar he can get his hands on.

Simultaneously badass and infinitely silly, the movie is stuffed to the gills with lines every bit as quotable now as they were 35 years ago, and while it’s been a hot minute since I was last acquainted with the film, it doesn’t take long before I’m involuntarily parroting it.

Sure, the quotability of a movie is never a full proof indicator of quality, and if we’re being completely honest, there’s not a whole lot of substance to Predator beyond the blood, guts, muscles, and one-liners, as it frequently indulges in some of the worst sins of 80s cinema, but my word is it still an absolute blast to watch, regardless.

In the decades since Predator’s release, the franchise has been to some pretty far out places – some good, many not so much – in a valiant attempt to recapture the original’s brutal magic, however, nothing’s ever come close to touching it. The Predator has gone from the jungle to LA and back again, even making time to brutalise a Xenomorph or two along the way, yet it’s never hit its target quite as accurately as it did when taking on Dutch and co.

Without a doubt, the franchise has taken quite the beating through the years, and at several points has looked dangerously close to all out extinction, however, like its tenacious antagonist, it has persevered. After the mess of 2018’s The Predator, it certainly felt like the series’ gig was up, but it’s testament to the incredible strength of Arnie and the sheer power of the first movie that the brand has survived to this day.

The very fact that Disney of all people has put their faith in the franchise just shows you how impressively enduring Predator is and the extent to which it’s still able to hit audiences right in the gut. Where things go for the entire Predator series from here, who knows, but if the encouraging buzz coming from Prey is anything to go by, the bloody-minded spirit of Arnie seems very much alive and well.

Prey hits Hulu (US) / Disney+ (Worldwide) on Friday 5th August.