Scary sci-fi

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2007)

I first saw TERMINATOR on a hotel room TV in Washington, D.C., with my wife and young daughter. I would say the film thrilled the heck out of us and probably scared my kid half to death, but the fact is, we were in a brightly lit hotel room and the TV wasn't particularly large. I know we were bowled over by the police station sequence and the final chase at the very least. This is one of Ah-nuld's best roles, and director James Cameron knows how to keep things moving along on a shoestring budget. The scene where Ah-nuld must deal with a partially ruined face is unforgettable. T2 came along a few years later and put the original to shame, much like ALIENS did to ALIEN. But if it were not for THE TERMINATOR, where would we be today? A groundbreaking sci-fi thriller, loosely based on a TV program and very old short story, by the way, neither of which is credited, as I recall.