🎬 X-Files Review: Predator – Badlands

by: Curb Fail Studios staff

1987 gave us one of the rawest creature flicks ever made. Now Predator – Badlands drags that legend through the dust and into the future — part survival horror, part redemption arc, and 100 percent Gen-X attitude.

Back to the Hunt

Director Dan Trachtenberg (Prey) returns with a lean, mean sequel that actually feels like a Predator movie again. Set in a scorched, near-future wasteland, it drops a new cast — led by Elle Fanning — into a world where the line between hunter and hunted barely exists.

Forget bloated CGI fests; this thing moves like an old-school actioner. Sparse dialogue, heavy tension, and a camera that loves grit more than gloss. The tech’s new, but the DNA’s pure 1980s menace.

Why It Hits Gen-X

We grew up on muscles, mud, and one-liners. The Badlands crew bleeds that same energy — just with more scars and less spray-tan. It taps straight into that Gen-X survivalism: make it work, fix it yourself, and don’t trust the system to save you.

Where millennials chase multiverses, we still chase grit. Badlands gives it back in spades.

The New Mythology

Trachtenberg builds on what Prey started — turning Predator into folklore instead of franchise. The Yautja’s still the ultimate hunter, but here it’s almost symbolic: the physical embodiment of everything trying to wipe out what’s left of humanity.

For Gen-X, that reads like a metaphor for burnout, resilience, and refusing to die quiet. That’s Common-X territory, man.

🎧 Sound, Sweat, and Score

The soundtrack pounds like metal scraped against concrete — industrial echoes, tribal drums, and synth nods that wink at Alan Silvestri’s original score. It’s the kind of sound design you feel in your ribs, perfect for Skullcandy headphones and late-night treadmill rage sessions.

Final Verdict

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆ (4.5/5)

Lean, mean, and smarter than it looks. Predator – Badlands respects its roots but doesn’t worship them. It’s the sequel Gen-X deserved — the one that remembers the jungle, the fear, and the fight.

Richard Karn: Tool Time to Timeless — Our Sit-Down on CommonX

By CommonX Staff | The X-Files | CommonXPodcast.com

There are moments in life when you realize your little show from a small town has become something much bigger. For us at CommonX, that moment was sitting across from Richard Karn — actor, producer, and the face of Home Improvement’s everyman wisdom — for a conversation that felt like catching up with an old friend.

Richard didn’t show up as a Hollywood icon; he showed up as one of us. He talked about life after Tool Time, the evolution of entertainment, and the quiet pride of still being recognized for doing something genuine.

We didn’t need a script — just two mics, some laughter, and a shared understanding that real conversations never go out of style. What surprised us most was how naturally he fit the CommonX vibe.

Karn spoke about growing up in the Pacific Northwest, working hard, staying grounded, and refusing to let fame change who he was. When he reflected on his years alongside Tim Allen, it wasn’t nostalgia — it was perspective.

“You know,” he said, “people remember the laughs, but what mattered was the connection. That’s what lasts.”

It was one of those episodes that reminded us why we started CommonX in the first place: to bridge generations, celebrate authenticity, and give our audience the kind of substance that algorithms can’t fake.

Sitting with Richard Karn didn’t just elevate our show — it validated it.

🎧 Watch or Listen

🎥 Richard Karn on the CommonX Podcast