No matter how good we are individually or as a whole, there is the capability for evil within all of us. At the same time that we deplore it, we are drawn to it. Whether this subconscious desire for violence stems from repression or from some core part of our being, we all seem to be subject to it. Most people restrain these desires well enough to function in society. Some, however, embrace it in full. Predators is an illustration of this evil. The film takes a handful of characters that live in constant pursuit of violence and forces them to confront the moral ugliness that they let control their lives.

Eight people, including a sniper, a Yakuza lord, a Russian soldier, and a mercenary (our main character, Royce), wake up parachuting to a jungle planet. They have one thing in common: they are good at killing. Whether they justify their bloodlust by joining the military or pursue those desires freely and with no legal sanction, they all love hunting humans. Now they find themselves hunted by far superior foes: those aliens better known as Predators. The characters are in a Hell suited to the sins that have guided their lives, and they probably won’t live through it.

Predators works best as an inverted illustration of the evil that lies within us. Throughout the film, the characters draw an explicit similarity between themselves and the Predators as hunters of men. At one point, a human character dons Predator armor and relishes his stepping into the role of the monster, replying to Royce’s, “What are you?” with a satisfied, “I’m alive.” When the characters spot traps laid by the Predators, their response of horror is often mixed with a hint of admiration. There is something attractive about these killers' efficiency, ruthlessness, and even ugliness. When we realize this allure, we also realize something about ourselves.

Thanks to their combination of animalism and technological sophistication, the Predators' ruthlessness produces the fear that is the driving force of the film. The first time we see them, their eyes light up from their invisibility cloaks, and they begin firing calmly at the main characters, considering them to be prey, not a threat. Other alien creatures, such as the tusked quadrupeds the Predators use to track game, are almost equally intimidating, running with mindless determination to find their prey. Even the Predators’ design, which has been a hit since the first Predator, is augmented on several of the creatures to enhance their ruthless appearance (without compromising the continuity of the first film). There are few movie monsters that can unsettle you simply by yelling at the camera. These are so well designed and built that they can do that.

A handful of problems pull the film into the action cliché territory it tries to avoid. Most of these are minor. We accept that all the characters speak English regardless of nationality because it would distract from the point of the film if communication was an elaborate process. We also accept the fact that the Russian soldier, despite being an adept wielder of a Gatling gun, can’t seem to hit a thing because action films have taught us that no target can be hit if it would be bad for the story. A larger, but still non-vital, shortcoming is the characters’ lack of development. They are given distinct personalities, and we learn about some of their pasts, but their interaction is almost exclusively functional to the scene at hand, with little nuance that serves to round them out without the aim of setting up a future event or reveal. For one character, this lack of development makes an otherwise fun final showdown with a Predator emotionless. The film still works as the visual analysis of primordial evil that it is meant to be, but an added dramatic component, accomplished with occasional dialogic flourishes, could have made it even better.

In 1987, Stan Winston designed the original Predator, and the monster immediately became a sci-fi fan favorite. Predators takes the concepts behind that monster and creates a Hellish world out of them. The result is an immersion in the kind of hideousness that we somehow find appealing. They say violence in literature works to sate our subconscious desires to experience such things. Predators does not only analyze that idea; it demonstrates its truth.