Nightmarishly gripping

Rating: 9/10 (27 August 2014)

You hear the name James Cameron and immediately think of big Hollywood spectacle. I mean, if nothing else, he's a consummate showman. And yet, one of his best movies works strictly on economy. "The Terminator" takes the B-movie premise of a killer robot stalking a young woman and infuses it with imagination. It's a terrific script that takes time travel, a love story and a nightmarish vision of the future and weaves it all into something exciting. You can see the constraints of the budget in the DIY effects, but the real joys of this movie lie in its flawless pacing and brutal efficiency. Schwarzenegger is imposing enough, but the image of the endoskeleton in the factory is still scary as hell.
There's an imaginative sci-fi angle to this, but Cameron knows you just can't beat a good thriller.
9/10 9/10