I know it's sci fi / thriller-ish but for some reason I get this archetypal slasher / horror vibe. I don't mean that in a bad way but it's effective because even though we're foretold the knowledge of the bad guys nature and intentions; his invincibility is almost ethereal and his unnatural endurance feels omniscient in an almost mystical / supernatural way. if that makes sense.
James Cameron really gives you that feeling of this quasi-omniscience of fighting the unknown. we never see the real bad boy [Skynet] and the faceless mirage makes the movie even more horrifying.
anyone else think this movie has very Horror-ish elements?
I like the way you described it there.
Ive always considered T1 best as its a SF Horror film first and foremost(like Alien) with the sequel more of the action genre but obviously still retaining the originals Horror premise but action-ifying it (like Aliens) - and then the sequels T345 really don't feel the same as the nightmarish original at all
T1 is basically Halloween with a SF/timetravel twist and was obviously heavily influenced by the stalk slasher movies of the late 70s/early 80s (Halloween, Friday13th, Texas Chainsaw) except with an unstoppable cyborg (in a similar way to the first Alien was stalkNslash with an alien) in the form of a huge scary looking german bodybuilder (the way Arnold looked back then was very frightening and totally believable in that you could imagine the machine underneath.. as scary as any Freddy, Jason, Michael, Alien etc). and it was influenced by 70s/80s post-apocalyptic genre (The Road Warrior, Day After etc) and the 70s/80s dark SF horror/thriller/chiller 'scientific' movies (Westworld, Alien, Saturn3, Blade Runner, Carpenters movies, Cronenbergs movies) before everything went action. (although at the same time T1 was one of the movies that contributed to the action genre taking off the way it did)
The fact it was an 18 in the uk at the cin/vhs made it feel more of the horror genre (like the slasher films and Alien etc) than the sequels (T2 was a 15) however T1 was eventually recertified to 15 on dvd (probably because of the more action orientated 15 rated sequel)
T1 has a feel of a doomed world that only very few people know about. i really like the creepy/eerie/mysterious near 'urban legend' atmosphere (with the story expertly unravelling to reveal the unthinkable/impossible).... but not so much when they opened it up so more know about everything as happened to varying degrees in the sequels (same for Alien, Matrix, Blade, Highlander etc)
In some ways I wish Cameron had just made T1 and it would've been this SF horror classic, no action movie sequels diluting the horror of the original (also just the one timeline circular paradox, as opposed to changing alternate timelines with multiple terminators)
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8 years ago
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bozo_500
7 years ago
Terminator was like a horror franchise more in keeping with the slasher flicks of the 80s before T2 changed all that
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igetitfaster
7 years ago
Terminator was like a horror franchise more in keeping with the slasher flicks of the 80s before T2 changed all that
One film does a franchise make?
Seems to me it did not become a franchise until additional films were made.
So actually what T2 did was clarify that it was NOT a horror franchise for those who harbored such a notion in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmK8-13LTqI
I Excel and Prevail
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