Like these frame-grabs from ‘The Shining’? Scary, huh, when Jack tries to break-in to the bathroom and kill Wendy.
Oh wait a minute – these shots aren’t from The Shining – they’re from that near forgotten Mike Hodges classic 1974 sci-fi thriller ‘The Terminal Man’!
Oh ‘The Terminal Man’ where have you been? I’ve heard about you. Read about you in old dusty film magazines long out of print. You’ve been out of print. Impossible to see, not on Laserdisc or VHS or DVD. Until Warner Bros., god bless them in their kindness, sought fit to start a program where they’ll burn DVDs on demand for you, the discriminating viewer.
So now you’re able to see this gem – this forgotten-about friggin gem of an intelligent, visually arresting, shocking, opaque, thought-provoking, tedious, Kubrick-inspired and Kubrick-inspiring, Michael Crichton* written, ‘Get Carter’ directed gem.
I don’t need to transcribe here the plot details – that’s what IMDB is for. Suffice to say ‘The Terminal Man’ is the real deal. This tale of a violent, paranoid computer genius who has a chip implanted in his brain in an experimental procedural to control his aggressive impulses, (what could possibly go wrong?), has so many delights – I’ll just name a few here:
Brilliant structure and contrasts: After a long, (40 minutes?), buildup taking place over multiple days the remainder of the film takes place during one night – a night in which the scientists, having realised their experiment is not working and their subject is on a countdown to a killing spree, are saddled during the remaining of the action wearing tuxedos as they were at a party celebrating said experiment – brilliant.
The images of educated doctors in black tie and tails contrasted with the ‘working stiff’ orderlies and detectives may seem a bit on the nose but it works – the film is rife with issues of class, hierarchy, young vs. old, inexperience vs. wisdom, male vs. female.
George Segal: Opacity itself. Who is he – really. What is he thinking? Segal’s portrayal of the disturbed computer scientist Harry Benson has now become one of my favourites in cinema. Segal’s Harry is not a character. He isn’t written. He’s as complex and nuanced as a real person – and because of this the film is even more chilling then it ordinarily would be – for we really don’t know what will happen – Benson and this pic feels as capricious as real life.
Color and Composition: Just look at the frame-grabs in this post – Director Mike Hodges and Photographer Richard Kline, (the guy who shot Andromeda Strain! and Mr. Majestyk! and Star Trek: The Motion Picture! and Body Heat!), remove from the frame that which is not necessary and leave us with stark, chilling compositions – this film is cold – even when blood is spilt – the whole film’s feel is an inspiration for ‘The Shining’, not just the bathroom scene.
Greatest Robot Death in Film: I’m not to going to show or link to a frame-grab from this sequence – suffice to say it’s shocking, funny, disturbing and transgressive.
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Ok, that’s enough on ‘The Terminal Man’ for now. If you love films of the 70′s, science fiction, thrillers or detective stories it’s a must.
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* Oh, Michael Crichton – must you be behind every science-fiction thriller chiller from the late-60′s onwards? I mean c’mon!:
etc. etc.
(And yes, there is a classic ‘Michael Crichton moment’, (aka the most heavy handed part of the pic), – where an elderly doctor gets up in a meeting to warn everyone that they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re meddling with forces beyond their control, etc. etc. yadda yadda).
