If I had to pick two things that I just can’t get enough of in films, it would have to be a good underdog story and gratuitous physical violence. It is only natural then that I would build a humble list of some of my favorite moments in cinema where the two are combined. When I think about what makes a fight particularly one-sided, it actually has less to do with the amount of people that the hero is up against and more about the hero’s strengths, or rather lack thereof. But then there’s always going to be an ‘awesome’ factor to think about, because when it is all said and done the hero usually triumphs against the odds – so the means in which they do such a thing is very important to me; being badass certainly has its merits, but in most cases, being creative is far more impressive.

Editor’s Note: We’ve spent a while searching for a fitting replacement for Ashe (who we still miss), but we’re elated to welcome David Christopher Bell to our team. He’ll be writing insightful lists for us every Thursday from now until we stop blackmailing him for that thing he did in Florida in 1986. Please give him a warm welcome! It’s funny. After Anthony Perkins first appeared as Norman Bates there was absolutely no going back from it. No matter what role he was put in after Norman, when audiences looked at him all they could see was the shower-interrupting taxidermologist that they feared so deeply. This proved to be a major hindrance in his career, causing him never to land any major role in the industry afterward. Now if only he had worn a mask. After all, if horror films have taught us anything it’s that no matter how effective a performance is, if you have a bunch of rubber on your face, mainstream audiences aren’t going to end up learning your name or recognizing your face. So in the interest of giving credit where credit is due, the following are some of those very names and faces that are responsible for some of the greatest movie nightmares of modern horror. People who you could walk right by on the streets and never know that they are to thank for all those times your childhood-spawned neuroses forced you to double-check under your bed.

We packed the truck that would travel to location in Palenque, Mexico a few days before we traveled via airplane. The set crew: Steve Wang, Matt Rose, Shane Mahan, Brian Simpson, Richard Landon and me. Stan Winston would be with us, supervising the set work, understanding that we would only be gone for two weeks. At least that is what our work visas indicated. Palenque, Mexico was not a location easily reached. It required one flight from Los Angeles to Mexico City, another to Villa Hermosa, and finally a long ride in a Volkswagen bus through miles of rough country until we reached our hotel that was, from what we were told, the best in the area. It sat in a large clearing, surrounded by trees; two wings of rooms branched out from a central building that housed a restaurant/bar. Later, we discovered that Arnold Schwarzenegger had taken over the entire upper conference room and had turned it into a gymnasium that was open to anyone on the crew. As we settled into our rooms we were told that there would be screening of the film the next day for the cast and crew. My understanding was that this was for the benefit of the new crew members to get a chance to catch up and understand the shots needed to complete the film. A screen and projectors were set up in Arnold’s gym.

By now, most fans credit Steve Wang and Matt Rose for the creation of the Predator. However, in my conversations with Steve, in particular, he feels that an unfair amount of credit has been given to him; it was a team effort bringing the Predator to life, and he couldn’t be more correct. During Monster Squad, Matt and Steve, who had been responsible for the Gillman, had worked through the weekend, grabbing precious few hours of sleep, while they established and painted the final suit. On Monday morning, it stood in the middle of Stan Winston’s satellite shop in all of its amphibian beauty. Stan saw it and his jaw bounced onto his chest. He had NEVER seen anything like it. It impressed him so much, that he, literally, stopped the work in the studio, gathered all of his employees around it and heaped praise upon these two kids (Matt was roughly 21 and Steve 20…maybe?). He said it was the best thing he had seen in his career thus far. Probably not the best strategy in the world. Months earlier, he was in England with his crew working on the Queen Alien, and now he was recognizing these two studio newcomers as the best. Where most of us in the shop agreed with Stan, there was some dissension.

There are events that define one’s existence that go beyond being learning or growing experiences. They become scars. Battle scars. They may fade in time, but they don’t go away. They persist. The memories of the events may become blurry, but every now and then, you run your fingertips along the raised, healed wound and remember. It all comes back like a punch in the nose. I had been on movie sets before and believed that I had been trained. The snarky ADs , the disinterested teamsters, the hustling, the waiting, they were all nearly second-nature to me, especially with the close of my on-set involvement with Monster Squad. However, nothing could prepare me for what I was going to face. My first location experience. My first time out of the country. My first time working set on a big budget film. My first time supervising a team. Predator would be all of those things and it would change my life forever.

No matter what I say below, know this: I will see Shark Night 3D. There are no press screenings, no DVDs mailed to my home. I will head out to a theater to watch it because I love sharks and I love watching people get eaten by them. So to be extra clear: I haven’t seen the film yet. No one has. But still, I’m going to bitch about it, because that’s how I roll. Why? Well, because it’s easy to get mad at this film. It’s rated PG-13. I mean, if there ever was a title for a hard R-rating, it’s Shark Night 3D. After all, Piranha 3D, which was probably instrumental in green lighting this late entry to Shark Week, was well received because of its gore. Its nudity. Its generally over the top nature. Without Jerry O’Connell getting his dick bit off and two hot, naked women swimming for six minutes, that film is a pile of crap. The blood makes it – and the PG-13 rating for Shark Night might break it.

Why Watch? Because you’ve always wondered who would win in a fight between Batman and… The legality of all this is completely unclear (to a simple caveman like me), and it would be a shame to ruin the surprise of the characters who show up here, but Batman has to take on some baddies that are new to Gotham. All of them are iconic to film fans, but they’re fresh off the boat as far as Bruce Wayne is concerned. This extended fight sequence was written and directed by Sandy Collora who has done creature effects, design and gained some acclaim for writing/directing Hunter Prey recently. Plus, it features Andrew Koening (yes, the guy who played Boner on Growing Pains) as a surprisingly creepy Joker, and a Batman that sounds like Keaton mated with Bale (in the good way). Enjoy geeking out. Or biding your time before The Dark Knight Rises hits your eyeballs. What does it cost? Just 6 minutes of your time.

For those of you who are new to the column, I’m revisiting formative events that have contributed to what I am now: A Special Make Up Effects Artist seeking relevance in the 21st Century. So, I’ve learned about liquid latex, got my camera, am hyped up on Star Wars, and ready to move up to the next level. I am sixteen – When the box appeared at my house, I was surprised at how heavy it was for its relative size. The shipping label was yellow and red, and in the upper left hand corner it confirmed that my order had arrived. “R&D Latex Corporation, Commerce, CA” it read. Finally, after a decade I held in my hands a box that contained the mystical material, the magical substance that turned actors into apes, had aged Dustin Hoffman to over 100 years old, and was the stuff of Ray Harryhausen Stop Motion Models! As you may remember, I read about R&D Latex Corporation in an article about building Stop Motion Models in “Super 8 Filmmaker” magazine, and I had sent in my fifty dollars (forty-five dollars for the one gallon kit plus five dollars shipping). By today’s standards that seems fairly reasonable, but in those days, when you worked at a grocery store and took home about $100 or less, $50 was quite the investment.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we talk with stuntman legend Vic Armstrong (who brought to life Indiana Jones, Superman and James Bond). We also chat with camera operator/cinematographer Peter Simonite (Skateland, Tree of Life), and we dig deeper into the monster-making world of effects master Shannon Shea. Plus, Matt Razak from Flixist spars off with Mike Smith from Examiner.com for our Movie News Pop Quiz, and we all learn an important lesson. By that, I mean a lesson about re-imaginings, reboots and re-re-re-makes. Listen Here: Download This Episode

It might just be the mist of the weekend still fogging up my mind, but there are a few things awfully confusing about the saggy cloud of Arnold Schwarzenegger looming over Hollywood and threatening to rain down madness once again. Precipitation references aside, the last action hero has now publicly stated that he’s going to step back into the world of acting (and anyone who claims what he does is somehow less than hasn’t seen or cried at Kindergarten Cop, and obviously can’t be trusted). It’s kind of a cool idea. Schwarzenegger has impeccable charisma, he’s a veteran at the game, and he generally picks solid projects. But there are still some head-scratching loose ends here.

Paul is an alien from outer space who likes to moon people, use his invisibility powers to show up randomly naked, and laugh just like Seth Rogen. There’s a new trailer for the film out today, and even though it says nothing about the exact quest the alien and his new spaced-out friends (played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) are going on, it’s still a shiny example of some solid comedy. Plus, there’s at least three major science fiction film references just in the trailer alone.

Hollywood is numbers obsessed. From box office to budget, to franchise installments and ensemble casts, it seems bigger is better and the more the merrier. You’d think by now, with a history of increasing the size of things, they’d have a handle on how things behave when they’re bigger or more numerous. Let’s take a look at some fairly popular franchises currently in the news: Alien and Predator. Each is a stunning example of how Hollywood doesn’t understand multiplication, though one is a better example than the other. First, let’s look at the originals and how they compare to the sequels in namesake. Alien was followed, logically, by Aliens. Where there once was one, now there were many. Predator was technically followed by several movies, most of which only featured a single Predator, but thanks to Troublemaker Studios, my analogy will now make more sense with the recent release of Predators.

One of the most vivid memories I have of the original Predator film is the no-fluff approach to storytelling. The audience, like the film’s team of mercenaries, is dropped right into the action with little exposition and plenty of machismo. It’s fitting then that Predators, a sequel that disregards everything that has happened since 1987, would do the same — in a more literal sense. When we meet Royce, played by Adrian Brody, he is falling. When he lands, the action begins and the audience is instantaneously transported back to a familiar place. A place deep in the jungle, where a team of killers is hunted by something otherworldly. A place that feels exactly as it should, as it has in the past.

June was a rough month for This Week in Blu-ray. Only a few of you actively missed it, judging by the emails, but I’m sure that even more of you felt a hole in your very souls due to the lack of weekly Blu-ray buying advice. By my count I am four weeks behind as of today, four weeks that each had worthy releases — some of which you may have purchased already. So in an effort to be brief, I’ve selected the most prominent releases and mixed them in with the Blu-rays hitting shelves this week. It’s my way of smashing four weeks of release together and wiping away the blood. In the end, it should give you a good road map for what you should have been doing all along.

Trying to keep up with the massive amount of chatter around Predators is becoming quite a chore. And while the Austin-produced, Robert Rodriguez created, Nimrod Antal directed production is high on my list of things to do next week, I just don’t have time to write 35 articles about it today. Not when there are burgers to be grilled and fireworks to be exploded this weekend. So I’m bringing you everything I’ve got (at the moment) in one big, juicy Predators update.

If you’re going to promise me a super villain, you’d better make him super. Easily knocked out heavy hitters leave me raging.

Trouble Maker Studios is heading up a reboot, and there might be more than one predator hunting us. Figure that one out.

We know that the Election Night coverage can be a bit monotonous, but while you’re waiting for the results to trickle down, you might as well watch a couple movies.

On this glorious day two species have come together in peace. It’s always nice to see old rivals bury the hatchet.

Christmas has finally swung in my direction. No more Tim Allen (though I like him), no Decking the Halls or Jingling of Bells but BLOOD.