Summaries

Synopsis

Los Angeles, 1997. The temperature in the city stands in the high 90s. In the streets, the LAPD and Colombian gangsters are fighting a pitched battle that the police are rapidly losing. Efforts to rescue two wounded cops have failed and backup is unavailable. Lieutenant Mike Harrigan bursts onto the scene. Harrigan arms himself and drives his car directly at the front lines, giving his comrades the chance to save their wounded friends. The Colombians seize the chance and retreat into a nearby building that serves as their stronghold.

While the Colombians arm themselves, they are attacked by an invisible enemy and slaughtered. Only the gang's leader, El Scorpio, makes it out, shooting wildly at Harrigan and his team. El Scorpio escapes to the roof, with Harrigan behind. On the roof, El Scorpio spots a distorted human figure and raises his guns to shoot. Harrigan shoots the man, who falls off the roof and is killed.

In the room where the gangsters were arming themselves, Danny notices that one of them has been stripped naked and hung upside down about 40 feet above the floor. Harrigan is lectured by his captain, who informs him that Peter Keyes, is trying to stop the Colombian and Jamaican gangs from establishing an empire on the west coast. Harrigan agrees not to interfere in Keyes' work.

Harrigan welcomes a new member to his team, Jerry. In a luxury apartment, Ramon Vega, the leader of the Colombian gangs is having sex with his girlfriend when they're interrupted by Jamaican gangsters. They hang him upside-down and cut his heart out as part of a voodoo ritual. They are suddenly attacked by an invisible enemy using superior weaponry. All of them are viciously slaughtered. When Harrigan and his crew arrive, they find several bodies hung from the ceiling, skinned. Vega's girlfriend is the only survivor. Also in the room is a sleazy reporter, Tony Pope, who films much of the carnage. The woman who survived is taken away in an ambulance.

Danny and Harrigan agree to meet at the scene later that night. Danny arrives first he spots a small object embedded in an air-conditioner. He pulls it loose and examines it; it appears to be a spear-tip. Suddenly, he hears Harrigan's voice nearby and loses his footing and falls. An arm catches him, and Danny looks up to see a large figure holding him by the ankle. The figure drags him back up and kills him. As he dies, Danny's necklace falls to the floor and is splattered with his own blood.

The captain reprimands Harrigan harshly for Danny's death and continuing to interfere with Keyes' investigation. Keyes tells Harrigan that the magnitude of the situation is beyond his comprehension. At the police forensics lab, Harrigan has a doctor examine the spear tip he recovered from Danny's body. The doctor determines that the metal isn't found on the Periodic Table of Elements. She also tells Harrigan about how Danny was murdered: by a sharp-edged weapon that cleaved Danny's heart.

Harrigan meets King Willy, the leader of the Jamaican gangs, with the intention of sharing information about their mutual nemesis. Willy, a voodoo practitioner, tells Harrigan that the enemy they both face comes from a netherworld. Just after Harrigan goes, the predator jumps to the ground behind Willy and walks through a small pool of water, electrical bolts surging across its body. It's active camouflage seems to short out. The creature challenges Willy to blade combat and Willy loses. The predator carries Willy's severed head away and is seen cleaning the tissue off the skull and polishing it. It mounts the skull on a spike.

Harrigan calls Jerry and Leona at the forensics lab. The doctor there says whoever killed him left traces of debris that came from a slaughterhouse. Harrigan and Jerry recall that Jerry had lost track of Keyes in LA's meatpacking district. Harrigan tells them to meet him there.

Harrigan goes to the cemetery to pay his respects to Danny. While he's there, he sees Danny's necklace hanging from a tree limb. Harrigan realizes the predator is stalking him specifically. As Jerry and Leona travel to the meat district via subway, the predator jumps onto the roof of their car and enters it. It wades through the passengers, killing anyone who possesses a weapon. Leona is able lead most of the passengers out of the car and to the opposite end of the train. While she does, she sees Jerry shooting at an invisible target. Jerry's bullets have no effect, and he leaps at the predator with a large knife. Leona walks back to the last car and finds Jerry and a couple of commuters hung upside and dead. The predator suddenly appears and grabs her. Looking her over with it's infrared vision, it sees that she's pregnant.

Harrigan arrives on the scene and walks down the tunnel, searching. He spots the predator ripping Jerry's skull and spinal column from his body. Harrigan chases it to street level. He steals a police car and chases it several blocks until he's stopped by Keyes' men. Taken to a high-tech command center, Keyes explains that the predator is an alien that uses advanced weaponry. He tells Harrigan about a commando team that encountered another of these creatures in a Latin American jungle 10 years before. Keyes says that they believe the alien can only track it's prey using infrared technology and that his team, intending to capture it and study it, will wear special suits that will insulate their body heat and make them invisible. At the same time, they will dust the slaughterhouse with radioactive particles that will make the alien visible. Their ultimate goal is to freeze the alien with frozen nitrogen. The predator comes to the location every couple of days to eat the beef there. Keyes tells Harrigan to stay in the command center and observe.

Keyes and his team move into the slaughterhouse. Their equipment functions well at first, until a couple of team members step on a creaking stair. The predator, hearing the noise, uses a small control panel to adjust it's vision enhancer, which changes several times until it's able to see the beams from the lights the team are using. Harrigan tries to warn Keyes that they've been spotted but the team is attacked by the predator, which kills nearly all of them. One of the teams sprays a smoke detector with nitrogen, setting off the warehouse's sprinkler system.

Harrigan leaves the command center, arms himself and blows down the door just as the predator fires a blast from it's laser cannon at Keyes. Harrigan shoots at the predator, damaging its laser cannon. The alien tries to activate it's cloaking system but the water falling from the sprinkler system prevents it from becoming invisible. Harrigan shoots the predator several times with a shotgun, blowing it onto its back. He approaches it slowly and removes it's helmet, studying it briefly before it wakes up suddenly and throws Harrigan backwards. The predator finally corners Harrigan and is about to kill him when Keyes intervenes, trying to blast the monster back with frozen nitrogen. Keyes tells Harrigan to retreat just as the alien throws a smart disk, cutting Keyes in half. The predator retreats to the roof of the building, using a breathing mask. It throws its large hunting spear at Harrigan and misses.

Harrigan uses the spear to push the alien and himself off the building, where they both hang onto a ledge. The predator activates a timer connected to a small nuclear charge. Before the charge can go off, though, Harrigan uses the alien's smart disk to sever it's arm, deactivating the bomb. The alien falls down the side of the building and crashes into an apartment bathroom. It uses an elaborate first aid kit to heal it's wounds and again retreats. Harrigan follows it, down an elevator shaft, falling into a cavern below the building where the alien's spacecraft has been hidden.

Inside the spaceship, Harrigan finds a small shrine of sorts with skulls of humans, animals and aliens. The predator once again attacks Harrigan who fights it off and kills it with its smart disk. After it falls dead, several more predators appear. With their targeting lasers trained on him, Harrigan asks which of them will fight him next. None of them challenge him and they carry their fallen comrade off. The last one to leave looks over Harrigan briefly and tosses him a flintlock pistol, a trophy from a previous hunt. Engraved on the pistol is the original owner's name and the year 1715. Harrigan hears the ship starting up and runs out to cover just before the blast from the engines fills the cavern. As Harrigan walks out of a tunnel he meets one of Keyes' assistants, who, upon seeing the haggard Harrigan, leaves him.