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All week long: Revisit the highlights and lowlights of 1987 with Popverse's Made in 87 week.

It's Made in '87 week here at Popverse, the only week out of this year in which we're going to be brave enough to ask: is Predator actually a horror movie? Don't get us wrong - movies like Prey prove that horror is core to the Predator franchise, but there's a pretty solid argument to be made that it's more of an action franchise. And even more than that, at least for the folks who actually worked on it ion 1987, there's an even better one to make that says Predator belongs on the "War" shelf at the video rental.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, a host of the creatives behind the OG Yautja film painted the picture of a production that was always 95% of the way into being a war movie. Folks who already know a bit of the film's history know it was already a spiritual sequel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Commando - which, like Predator, was produced by Joel Silver. But also working on the film was another titan of the war genre (though perhaps a lesser known one): Craig Baxley, the stunt coordinator on The A-Team.

"When John [Davis, producer] and I had our first couple meetings," explained Baxley, "John stressed that this was not a war movie, this was a horror movie and that he was gonna shoot all the action. I was getting mixed signals."

In 1987, the iconic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon debuted - and all our lives were changed. Watch this reunion of the original voice actors:

Those mixed signals continued throughout production, like during one particular stunt sequence that featured Arnodl with a grenade launcher.

"It looked like [World War II was happening] just on this one stunt," the stunt man continued, "Unfortunately, when we’d go to dailies we’d sit there and John would stand up and yell, 'This isn’t a f—ing war movie!' and Joel would be screaming, 'Shut up! It’s beautiful! It’s magic! Wait till you see it cut together!'"

Magic though it may have been, the accusations of the film not being a war movie are still pretty hard to shake. Especially since some of the cast, admits casting director Jaclie Burch, were hired because of their service in Vietnam. 

2027 will mark 40 years since the Predator stalked an elite military team who use elite military equipment and elite military tactics, and if you ask me, I suspect the debate over whether it can be considered a war or horror film will still be just as hot as the machine gun in Bill Duke's hands.

Sorry John.  

Predator is available to stream now on Hulu. 

Get your wide-shoulder blouses and your Members-Only jackets, and go back in time with Popverse's Made in 87. Highlights include:

• Inside the chaotic rise and fall of The Lost Boys TV series that never made it to air
• How Bart Simpson was quietly toned down from being "so mean" before The Simpsons' first episode, as revealed by his long-time voice actor Nancy Cartwright
• Marvel Comics killed the X-Men in 1987 to reset the franchise - but it didn’t stick
• Why the Princess Bride’s iconic duel is an even better swordfight than you remember
• How The Golden Girls became a staple at gay bars in the 80s
• Inside Spider-Man’s chaotic 1987 bachelor party that Marvel turned into a real-life spectacle