It's difficult to watch James Cameron's second film as writer-director and get into the mindspace of 1984 audiences seeing it fresh, because so many sequels/spin-offs have diluted the experience. The original may look dated in some ways (especially the work of Stan Winston, trying to do complex FX in a pre-CGI age with negligible budget), but The Terminator can still rely on its great performances, sharp narrative, palpable tension, gripping action, and a killer premise...In mid-'80s Los Angeles, the titular villain arrives naked in a ball of electrical energy; a cyborg "Terminator" (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent back through time to assassinate the mother of the unborn leader behind a resistance against its fellow machines. That target is timid waitress Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a woman whose death he aims to ensure by systematically killing every "Sarah Connor" in the phonebook -- unwisely calling attention to himself when the LAPD make the easy connection. Later, another time-traveller is spat out onto the city streets, this one a human soldier from the future called Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) who's been sent back by Sarah's adult son John to protect her from the metal menace...
Allegedly inspired by The Twilight Zone episode "Demon With A Glass Hand" (indeed, Cameron was forced to pay-off author Harlan Ellison), The Terminator is essentially a slasher movie given a clever sci-fi twist. As a villain, the T-800 is written as near-silent serial-killing boogieman (it even has m.o of only targeting people with a certain name), with the uncanny ability to vanish from its crime scenes in a heartbeat (not unlike Jason Vorhees or Michael Meyers.) It's an unemotional, unrelenting, seemingly unstoppable nightmare with an Uzi replacing a machete, and one that forces the timid Sarah to find an inner strength she never knew she had, while falling in love with her guardian and accepting she has a critical role to play in the future of mankind itself.There's a chilly despair to The Terminator that none of its sequels ever replicate, as they instead grew increasingly slicker and morphed into crowd-pleasing blockbusters. By comparison, the original is a cold, grueling B-movie experience. It helps that Schwarzenegger (in his breakout role, having originally auditioned for the Kyle Reese role) was at the apex of his former-Mr Universe physique. The '84 Arnie still had that "Austrian Oak" demeanour and an alien quality that softened as he was Americanized; by Terminator 2 we were dealing with a shades-wearing Hollywood megastar, by Batman & Robin he was a human cartoon. But never forget that his Terminator character here is cold, ruthless and a genuinely unnerving presence. It's disappointing Arnie never got to play more villains in his career (we'll ignore Mr. Freeze), as he was instead embraced as the wisecracking, bicep-bulging hero of the Regan-era. A true immigrant success story and a real world Superman who lived the American Dream.
But back to the movie. My abiding memory of The Terminator when I first saw it (in 1985, in secret) was how genuinely threatening the situation felt, as it didn't seem at all possible Sarah (in particular) or even trained soldier Reese could hope to defeat the T-800 using guns. It instead became a long chase; a kind of hopeless nightmare where a pursuing hunter is always gaining ground every time you glance behind to check...I remember it being almost depressingly comical when the Terminator was apparently destroyed at the wheel of an exploding truck -- only to resurface from the debris as a stop-motion endoskeleton and continue its pursuit. This is sadly the moment the film stops being quite as threatening without Arnie, but it nevertheless pulls of a memorable, satisfying victory for Sarah, capped by an oft-quoted line that beautifully releases the pressure. But hers is a triumph tainted by the sacrifice of her lover Reese, the consequent heartache the reveal that Reese is her saviour son's father, and the spine-tingling coda of there being "a storm coming" as Sarah drives off to Mexico to await the world's end...
written & directed by: James Cameron starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator), Michael Biehn (Kyle Reese), Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor), Earl Boen (Dr. Silberman), Paul Winfield (Ed Traxler), Lance Henriksen (Hal Vukovic), Bess Motta (Ginger Ventura), Rick Rossovich (Matt Buchanan), Dick Miller (Pawn Shop Clerk) & Shawn Schepps (Nancy) / MGM / 108 mins. / $6.4 million (budget)
