Watch the trailer for ‘The Predator’ and see a perfect callback to 80s horror

The late-70s and 80s were a pure golden age for horror films. The once goofy genre had new life blown into it after the critical and financial success of such films like 1973's The Exorcist and 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Audiences were terrified again when they sat comfortably in their seats eating popcorn. The 80s upped the ante even further with The Shining and The Evil Dead.

There were many great films released in this era but there were also plenty of flops, due in large part to filmmakers trying to recreate success without understanding what made the original so popular.

Then came the film that came to define both 80's horror and action films: Predator.

On paper, Predator played like an action film. It starred both Carl Weathers and Arnold Schwarzenegger at the top of their game, directed by John McTiernan (who would go on to make Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, and The 13th Warrior) and produced by Joel Silver (the man who produced nearly every great action film since The Warriors.)

But it wasn't just an action film. Deep down, Predator was also a horror film.

Instead of the generic teenagers, the film followed the most elite commandos the world had ever seen. They were such hardened badasses that anything wanting to pick them off like flies would need to be that much more badass. The antagonistic killer wasn't some mustache-twirling prick who'd spout off puns. The predator hunted down each and every one of the commandos (except the lead), which gave the film it's terrifying core: the humans were being hunted they way we hunt animals.

The script was also worked on by the relatively unknown Shane Black. After scripts are written, they tend to go through plenty of rewrites and usually involve another writer to come in and "doctor" the script — like having a friend proofread it. Shane Black needed to know every little bit of the script down to the punctuation. For his work, he got to play Hawkins, the radio operator that is just brutally killed by the titular character.

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Shane Black would get his big break following the success of Lethal Weapon (which was released three months earlier). He'd go on to make his directorial debut with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and solidify his Hollywood status with the astronomically successful Iron Man 3.

Now everything comes back full circle. The man who's been at the heart of the Predator franchise from day one, who has beyond proven his ability as one hell of a writer and director, is now back to return it to its roots — as both an action and a horror film.

Check out the trailer for the updated film below: