[Editor’s note: As part of the ABCs of Death 2 promotion, Magnet Releasing is having the anthology film’s participating directors offer select sites what they consider the “greatest movie deaths.” Julian Gilbey, director of the entry C is for Capital Punishment and the film A Lonely Place to Die presents his entry here. Following that, check out a clip reel below!]
The (very belated) “death” of the T-800 in The Terminator (1984) – I know this is not strictly a human death but it lingered in the consciousness long after the film had finished.
I saw the film on VHS in 1986 and had NO IDEA what the story was about or even if the guy from Conan The Barbarian was gonna play a good guy or a bad guy (NB – back then, it took anywhere from a year to 18 months for a cinema film to come out on video in the UK).
So – firstly, I need to point out that this is a HORROR film! Yes, I know the sequel was an action film, but the original was TERRIFYING.
I thought this terrifying uzi wielding psycho was killed in the nightclub TECH-NOIR, and we were hugely relieved. When he got back up, we started screaming! Later, we reveal he has a metal endoskeleton and we see him fixing himself up.
Anyway, throughout the film, we realise how indestructible he actually is (the shootout at the police station illustrates this perfectly) – the final chase sequence was again really scary but thankfully, at last, the Terminator is killed in an explosion, and we see him burn and collapse. My older bro and I cheered with relief and could finally breath easy. Sarah found Kyle, and they hug, and it’s all over…then… WTF!!!! The metal endoskeleton rises up from the flames, an invincible metal monster that looks like a mechanical version of one of the creepy Jason and the Argonauts skeletons (1963) – the determination of this “creature” is even scarier that Arnold’s dead pan psychopath – and it just WOULD NOT DIE!
Then, when Reese is dead, we breathe easy BUT IT COMES BACK AGAIN – finally, with the classic line “You’re terminated, fucker,” Sarah crushes the monster, and the fading LEDs in the eyes signal he finally “dies” – but we were still nervous he could come back again.
The sheer simplicity and (at the time) utter originality of this type of indestructible villain that could bleed, get cut, yet wasn’t human, made this one of the most nail-biting rides in ’80s cinema (or ’80s VHS viewing in my case) – and what a genius move of Cameron to turn this really scary ’80s villain into a ’90s hero 7 years later – but that’s another story.
Greatest Movie Deaths of All Time from Drafthouse Films on Vimeo.
