Line #17 NightmareFuel/Predator


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4	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/prespinerip.png]]
5	[[caption-width-right:350:Billy was right; they were being hunted.]]
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7	->'''Billy:''' I'm scared, Poncho.\
8	'''Poncho:''' Bull''shit''. You ain't afraid of ''no'' man.\
9	'''Billy:''' There's something out there, hunting us... and it ain't no man. We're all gonna die.
10
11	Like its ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' counterpart, ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'' has had its fair share of nightmarish moments, mostly revolving around the titular antagonist.
12
13	[[index]]
14	* ''NightmareFuel/Predator2''
15	* ''NightmareFuel/{{Predators}}''
16	* ''NightmareFuel/ThePredator''
17	* ''NightmareFuel/Prey2022''
18	* ''NightmareFuel/AlienVsPredator''
19	* ''NightmareFuel/AliensVsPredatorRequiem''
20	[[/index]]
21
22	----
23	!!Franchise
24
25	* The very idea of being hunted by an invisible alien who is tougher than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
26	* The Predator in general. Besides its [[BlatantLies delightful]] [[NightmareFace face,]] it can camouflage itself, making it near invisible (unless water comes into play), mimic human voices to lure victims, and collects human skulls and spines as trophies. Not to mention it has quite the array of [[HellIsThatNoise frightening roars, screams and clicking noises]].
27
28
29	!!''Predator''
30
31	* The skinned bloodied corpses of Jim Hopper and his men, accompanied by a ScareChord and a JumpScare.
32	* The distorted recordings of Billy's laugh and Mac's voice ("Over here", "turn around", "anytime").
33	* When Hawkins is killed by the Predator. It moves in swiftly and kills him, spilling blood all over the female refugee. All that his crew members can locate of Hawkins is through a blood trail. The audience doesn't see much, thankfully, but BodyHorror and {{Squick}} don't even begin to describe it. It doubles because the group has already been established as hardened badasses, and Poncho is ''deeply unsettled'' by what he's just seen.
34	-->'''Poncho:''' Major, you better take a look at this.\
35	'''Dutch:''' Did you find Hawkins?\
36	'''Poncho:''' I-I can't tell.\
37	'''Dutch:''' ''[eyes widen]''
38	* The part where the Predator steals Blain's body and a boar it scared jumps on Mac in a panic.
39	** Also, the FridgeHorror that comes into play after the team discovers Blaine's body is missing -- if that boar hadn't been there and freaked out, they never would have known the Predator was there.
40	** It could even be that the Predator deliberately flushed the boar towards the team as a distraction, which gives a creepy indicator of how cunning the Predator really is.
41	* Dillon searches for Mac, only to find him dead. Suddenly he hears Mac behind him ("any time"), causing him to quickly turn around. Dillon looks around up into the trees (we see from his point of view), with Predator's cackles echoing. As he's looking, you can just make out [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xofywOoNak&t=0m57s the Predator's invisible silhouette standing on the branch]], which [[DoubleTake Dillon looks past before looking at it again]]. This time the silhouette is more obvious, with glowing eyes, which Dillon sees [[OhCrap with widen eyes]].
42	* The scene where Dutch careens off a waterfall and falls into a pool of water below to escape the Predator, and the Predator follows him. Dutch emerges above water, and is able to catch his breath in a few moments of silence...[[JumpScare and then the Predator falls into the pool a few yards behind him]], complete with a ScareChord. And since the Predator is still using its invisibility camouflage at this point, we still don't see the Predator proper when it hits the water -- [[NothingIsScarier just the resulting splash]], which makes the water look like ''it rose upwards by itself''. It's no surprise that Dutch, upon hearing the splash, ''immediately'' starts swimming towards land with an absolutely terrified expression.
43	* A sort of reveal after Mac dies: the laser beam's convergence at the Predator's shoulder mount gives viewers the impression it shot Mac from quite a distance... then it ''moves'', and we see that it was literally standing [[ParanoiaFuel right on top of him]]. Mac must have [[OhCrap realized that]] right before he died.
44	* Mac's SanitySlippage is actually quite disturbing to watch, between his wide-eyed ThousandYardStare and his voice cracking while uttering the MadnessMantra.
45	* The Predator's laugh when it activates the self-destruction mechanism to kill itself. It starts out deep and slow, then suddenly bursts into a high, loud, very human-like maniacal cackle which mimics Billy's laugh.
46	* While waiting for the Predator to fall into their trap, Anna starts talking about something that happened in her childhood. The camera focuses on Dutch, who looks at her with curiosity and confusion.
47	-->'''Anna:''' When I was little, we found a man. He looked like... like, butchered. The old woman in the village crossed themselves... and whispered crazy things -- strange things. ''"El Diablo cazador de hombres."'' [[EternalRecurrence Only in the hottest years this happens -- and this year, it grows hot.]] We begin finding our men. We found them sometimes without their skins... [[AFateWorseThanDeath and sometimes much, much worse]]. ...''"El que hace trofeos de los hombres"'' means ''"the demon who makes trophies of men"''.
48	* Not long after this, Dutch emerges from the team's hiding place, ostensibly to bait the Predator into their trap. He carefully navigates the network of snares and tripwires, even getting momentarily stuck on one, as he moves from cover into the open. He stands there a moment, staring into the jungle, and sees no sign of the creature. Just as he starts to turn around, a snare is triggered, and with an awful roar the Predator flies into the air, hoisted by the net.
49	** The JumpScare alone is bad enough, but FridgeHorror comes into play once you consider that in order to have triggered that trap, the Predator must have been ''standing right behind Dutch, totally invisible, about to stab him in the back.''
50	** The FridgeHorror gets even worse the more you think about it. Did it creep between Dutch and the rest of the team completely undetected? How long was it there for? Was it standing there in front of them, invisible, the entire time and Dutch walked right past it?
51	* Dutch is a big guy, and throughout the film we see him perform nearly [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower superhuman feats of strength]]. In the final act of the film, where he and the Jungle Hunter are having a fist fight, the Predator [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter outclasses]] him on every level. All those feats of strength were to showcase just how far beyond humans the Predators are.
52	* The Predator's actual speaking voice is pretty unsettling. After getting beaten by Dutch, it answers his "what the hell are you" question not with its usual mimicry, but with its own ''completely inhuman'' voice. It takes raspiness up to eleven, as its voice sounds like a mix of growls, grunts, and clicks unnaturally contorted into English.
53	* The eerie song that plays each time the Predator's presence is hinted, with a creepy fast drum sound becoming increasingly loud as the Predator gets closer to its prey, fitting of the terrifying, invisible and superhuman alien threat he is.
54
55	!!Expanded Universe
56	* '''The Bad Blood Predators.''' Take a Yautja and remove all forms of honor like not killing those that can't fight back and limiting their tech to make things even. They even use Xenomorphs as hunting dogs.
57	** To illustrate how brutal these Predators are, take a look at the [[https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Bad_Blood_Predator?file=PBBshort.jpg aftermath]] of the first appearance of a Bad-Blooded Predator that landed in a paintball range. The thing is literally ''drenched in blood.''

Context NightmareFuel / Predator