Here’s my personal theory as to why Predator has stuck around after so many similar movies have disappeared from the public consciousness, and it’s not the alien (although that is a vital component).

It’s that Arnold Schwarzenegger [SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T SEEN IT!] loses the climactic fight.

Think about it: We’ve got a more-or-less traditional action scenario: the Austrian Oak (named “Dutch,” because duh) leads a Black Ops troop into Central America on a rescue mission. There, an alien hunter quickly decimates this ragtag troop of former wrestlers, football players and porn stars until we get to the customary final bout of mano-a-extraterrestrialmano.

Customarily, pretty much every Arnie film comes down to a show of brute force — i.e. Commando, Conan, Raw Deal, Eraser, Jingle All the Way, et al. — because how could anyone hope to defeat a man whose biceps are bigger than the average American’s thigh? Yet here, we find Mount Brawny outmatched. He’s forced to outthink his crab-faced opponent through an adoption of new tactics rather than come at him muscles a-blazin’, and even then he loses. It’s only through a mixture of luck and intelligence that Schwarzenegger ultimately manages to triumph.

Beyond that, Predator would still only be a rare acceptance of action-hero mortality if it weren’t for the now-famous alien, a charismatic creation that is practically the xenomorphic embodiment of Schwarzenegger himself. Director John McTiernan (Die Hard) wisely keeps it hidden behind an invisible shield to heighten the tension, and keeps the action and wisecracks flowing smoothly. Frankly, he’s a far better director than the material deserves and keeps the B-movie festivities from falling to, say, Dwight H. Little (Marked for Death) levels of averageness.

Even more than that, McTiernan deserves some mention for achieving the nigh-impossible: making Jesse Ventura watchable. Although Ventura tries his damnedest to stop him. —Corey Redekop

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I, Frankenstein. This, garbage.

Based on a reasonably obscure comic book, I, Frankenstein feels more as if its true origins lie in the bleeps and blips of a video game. At one point among a seemingly endless number of fight scenes, our stitched-together hero makes a broad leap over a car and punches a gargoyle on his way down — a slow-motion move that sophomore director Stuart Beattie (better-known as the screenwriter of Collateral and 30 Days of Night) commits to pixels in a left-to-right pan. All that’s missing is a life/health counter at the screen’s fringes.

The classic Frankenstein story dreamt by Mary Shelley is dispensed within mere minutes in order to bring the mad doctor’s reanimated creation into the 21st steampunk century. Here named Adam, the handsomely scarred monster (Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight‘s Two-Face) joins the fight against Satan’s legion of demons, which conveniently number 666.

They snarl from behind Halloween masks; he finishes them off with the panache of a skilled martial artist. Those longing to see Frankenstein’s monster basically plopped into Kate Beckinsale’s part in the Underworld series — with which the film shares producers — may delight amid all the blue-tinted flash. But even that’s not likely, as I, Frankenstein is numbing, best summed up by the subtitle your Blu-ray player will repeat often if the feature is activated: “METAL CLANGING CONTINUES.”

Sadly, Eckhart in a Goodwill-donated robe is not the same as Beckinsale in black leather pants. Speaking of the ladies, Adam just wants to be built a mate. I, Bride of I, Frankenstein, anyone? Hope not. —Rod Lott

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Like a French version of 1984’s Night of the Comet, Dead Shadows depicts one night in the City of Lights — specifically, the one with the passing of a comet. This rare event makes tech-support slacker Chris (newcomer Fabian Wolfrom) very nervous. After all, when a comet last passed a decade ago, dear old’ Dad went mad and killed Mom; Chris has been afraid of the dark ever since.

With Chris on edge more than usual, a relaxant of sorts arrives in the form of Claire (Blandine Marmigère), his hot, newly single neighbor. An artist by trade, she invites Chris to an “apocalypse party” that night. We know she’s good to go when she shares the name of her in-progress series of paintings: Orgasmic Explosions.

Chris agrees — wouldn’t you? — but has trouble finding Claire at the soirée. He does, however, see a man’s anaconda-like alien phallus slither up a slutty attendee’s behind … and out her mouth. Basically, the comet’s presence causes the citizenry to mutate — or is it all just in Chris’ head? — into a parade of Lovecraftian monsters that would give Guillermo del Toro a Pacific Rim-sized erection.

With a running time under the 75-minute mark, Dead Shadows should spark to life on the double; first-time director David Cholewa bides his time, however, so viewers likely will expect a payoff worthy of his slow build. It does not happen, although a face-melting partygoer and a topless spider-woman are effects well-realized. Cholewa’s direction is not at fault for the film’s eventual place one step above mediocrity — it’s newbie Vincent Julé’s script, stupide. In the end, with all accounted for, the movie is far more c’est la vie than c’est magnifique. —Rod Lott

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Mercilessly yet accurately parodied by the titular segments of 1987’s Amazon Women on the Moon, the sci-fi spectacle of 1958’s Queen of Outer Space stands today — shoulders back, girls! — as a camp curio. After all, it stars everyone’s second favorite Hungarian beauty, Zsa Zsa Gabor, now known more for playing herself (i.e. The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear) and/or a real-life bride (nine trips at press time) than actually acting.

In the year 1985, a group of square-jawed astronauts is sent on a mission to Venus, to determine whether Earth is in mortal danger from the cloud planet. Turns out, hardly! Thought to be uninhabitable, Venus houses a bevy of beautiful women — the shapely kind for which the term “wowza” was coined. Most of them are friendly; their wicked queen is decidedly not. Contrary to audiences’ expectations and beliefs, her highness Queen Yllana is not played by Gabor, but Laurie Mitchell (Attack of the Puppet People) — because I’m guessing Gabor wouldn’t dare appear with a face that looks that looks dipped in boiled goulash.

Queen of Outer Space comes form-fitted with many a sci-fi trope and prop — do look out for the giant rubber spider — but plays like a Miss America pageant in glorious CinemaScope … and not-so-glorious misogyny. In accentuating beauty above all else, it portrays women as trophies to periodically hold one’s sperm. As the horniest of the men, Patrick Waltz (The Silencers) fires off lines like:
• “How’d you like to drag that to the senior prom?”
• “You know how women drivers are!”
• “How could a bunch of women invent a gizmo like that?”
• “How can a doll as cute as that be such a pain the neck?”
• “She’s jealous! Twenty-six million miles from Earth, and the little dolls are just the same.”

How much of that was just the character is up for debate, but so many clues suggest director Edward Bernds (Return of the Fly) and screenwriter Charles Beaumont (TV’s The Twilight Zone) were charter members of the ol’ “barefoot and pregnant” brigade. If anything else within the colorful fun of Queen hits a sour note, it’s that an uncredited Joi Lansing (Marriage on the Rocks) appears only in the prologue. —Rod Lott

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With only five helming credits to his name, Guilio Paradisi — aka the Americanized Michael J. Paradise — had an undistinguished career as a director, mostly of comedies long forgotten, if ever recipients of attention. Luckily for us, in the center of that short list stands The Visitor, a way-out blend of science fiction and horror. While Paradisi displays as artistic a touch in the Italian-made mind-melter as the budget allowed, the true guiding hand appears to belong to producer Ovidio G. Assonitis, whose story credit fits well within the weirdo vibe of his screenplays for Beyond the Door and Piranha Part Two: The Spawning.

In Atlanta (as in Georgia, the titles make clear), a precocious, pigtailed and potty-mouthed girl named Katy Collins (Paige Conner, Fast Food) lives in a spacious, mid-century-modern house complete with a front-projection, big-screen television on which she plays Pong. Katy looks a lot like The Exorcist‘s Regan MacNeil, but behaves more like The Omen‘s Damien Thorn. For starters, she telekinetically causes the basketball to explode in the final second of a pivotal pro game; later, at her own 8th birthday party, she “accidentally” shoots her mother, Barbara (Joanne Nail, Switchblade Sisters), with a gun, paralyzing the utterly lovely woman from the waist down.

Barbara’s delicate condition is good news for boyfriend Ray (Lance Henriksen, Alien vs. Predator), the hoops team owner tasked by some super-secret, super-wealthy organization to marry the woman so that he can put a baby in her. See, although Barbara doesn’t know it, her womb is special in that it can “give birth to children with immense powers.” Even kreepy Katy encourages Mom to do some cushion-pushin’ so Ray can dump his seed and give her a little brother.

More insanity is to be plumbed from The Visitor, including vengeful ice skaters, flocks of killer birds and interdimensional warriors who work for Jesus Christ (an unbilled Franco Nero, Django). Legendary director John Huston (The African Queen) plays one of those angels and is just one of many old-age Hollywood personalities taking a lire-converted paycheck, including Glenn Ford (1978’s Superman) as a detective, Mel Ferrer (Nightmare City) and The Wild Bunch director Sam Peckinpah as doctors, and Shelley Winters (Lolita) as a new nanny who, despite being Caucasian and far from indentured, likes to sing “Shortnin’ Bread.”

This interesting casting is right in line with the ambitious (but not always successful) story’s hallucinogenic visuals and narrative hysterics that forever threaten to go into panic mode. So insane it should be committed, The Visitor isn’t worth watching once. It requires multiple viewings. —Rod Lott

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