Dear Watchers,Don’t let the giant, sharp teeth and the warrior mentality scare you. At least not if you’re an android. In the latest movie in the “Predator” franchise, the alien fighter at its center has family obligations and the capability to create friendships, particularly with a robot that looks a lot like Elle Fanning. Our expert in the sci-fi genre, Elisabeth Vincentelli, writes about how “Predator: Badlands” shifts the point of view to the alien’s perspective and allows you to feel a bit more sympathy for him. As a human, though, you still likely wouldn’t want to cross the creature’s path. Elisabeth’s other pick this week involves a virus that causes people to merge with their environment. Talk about going with the flow! Read below what makes the premise compelling, then click here to check out additional sci-fi picks (like time-looping teens on a roller coaster of havoc). ‘Predator: Badlands’
Where to watch: Stream “Predator: Badlands” on Hulu. It is fairly rare to have a film told from the alien’s perspective, especially when it’s the ninth installment in a long-running franchise that has always depicted its interstellar main characters as humanity’s enemies. Admittedly, the Yautja (known to audiences as Predators) are everybody’s enemies, because an obsession with hunting is their defining attribute. Still, putting the viewers in their heads was a challenge — albeit one the director Dan Trachtenberg brilliantly overcomes in “Predator: Badlands.” We follow a Yautja named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) as he travels to a hostile planet where he wants to kill a particularly fearsome creature so he can prove his worth to his family. While there he meets two synthetics (both played by Elle Fanning), and his developing friendship with one of them humanizes (so to speak) the fearsome warrior and the android. You can feel the influence of old-school pulp adventure by the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack Vance in Trachtenberg’s classic style: He knows the franchise inside out, and he also knows how to tell a good yarn. As anybody who’s ever fallen asleep watching a movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe can attest, this kind of loving craftsmanship is also rare. ‘Else’
Where to watch: Stream “Else” on Amazon Prime Video or YouTube. We first meet Anx (Matthieu Sampeur) and Cass (Edith Proust) in the middle of a tryst. It seems as if the encounter will be a one-night stand, but the pair end up stuck together in Anx’s apartment when an illness forces people to batten down the hatches. The new affliction starts as a skin disease that eventually takes over the entire body, fusing the victims with their surroundings — and it spreads via eye contact. The illness may start as a dermatologist’s nightmare, but “Else” explores a tactile, sonic new world created by the merging of flesh, stone and whatever else is lying around. Our two lead characters keep abreast of what’s happening by watching a website that broadcasts footage from various surveillance cameras. They also talk to neighbors through the building’s vents, and the unseen presences add a spectral quality to the proceedings. “Else” bears the influence of “Eraserhead” and David Cronenberg’s entire filmography, along with touches of Jean Cocteau-esque poetry. But the director Thibault Emin adds a personal imprint to body horror, making us wonder what it even means to be a living creature. Want to see more of our expert reporting in your Google search results?
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