The Terminal Man

Name: The Terminal Man
Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller, Horror
Released: June 19, 1974
Duration: 107 min
Rating: 41
Cast: Donald Moffat, George Segal, James Sikking, Jill Clayburgh, Joan Hackett

1974

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Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Critic Reviews

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The Terminal Man

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Movie Details & Credits

Warner Bros. | Release Date: June 19, 1974 | PG

Starring: Donald Moffat, George Segal, James Sikking, Jill Clayburgh, Joan Hackett, Matt Clark, Michael C. Gwynne, Norman Burton, Richard Dysart, William Hansen

Summary: Hoping to cure his violent seizures, a man agrees to a series of experimental microcomputers inserted into his brain but inadvertently discovers that violence now triggers a pleasurable response his brain.

Director: Mike Hodges

Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Thriller, Horror

Rating: PG

Runtime: 107 min

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Critic Reviews

Empire Staff (Not Credited)

Hodges takes a cool, detached approach, designing most scenes in monochrome with disturbing flesh-colours, and manages to make Segal's semi-android a strangely sympathetic monster. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Opening with a brilliant sequence in which Segal is reborn on the operating table, and building towards a finale in which the scientists realise that they can do nothing to control this hi-tech monster of their own making, the film's bleak futuristic vision also benefits greatly from some extraordinary sets, and from writer/producer/director Hodges' confident direction. Read full review

Molly Haskell

I'm not sure I can accept these chilling extremes of "sick" and "well," but Mike Hodges renders them with some of the same grim beauty and sense of absurdity he brought to Get Carter. [17 Jun 1974, p.82]

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

An aimless and unexciting science-fiction story about a computer scientist, Segal, who undergoes brain surgery and is transformed into a maniacal murderer. Read full review

Pauline Kael

One of those errors-of-science thrillers; it's an even worse error of moviemaking.

Judith Crist

Even George Segal gone bananas, courtesy of an out-of-whack computer in his head, chopping a lady and her waterbed into slow-motion streams of diluted blood that makes pretty patterns on white tiles, doesn't alleviate the excruciating boredom and intermittent nausea produced by The Terminal Man. [24 Jun 1974, p.59]

Nora Sayre

The picture moves as slowly as a glacier—an image that's reinforced by the repetitive shots of long, white hospital corridors, white bathrooms and home décor—in fact, it's a white-on-white movie. There's no suspense; the only frightening moments occur when you fear it may last forever, especially during the seemingly endless operation and an interminable manhunt. Read full review

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jamess

Oct 8, 2021

This adaptation of the early Michael Crichton novel arrived at a time when the late author's work was just starting to gain serious attention, be it from his novels and/or his directing. The Andromeda Strain and Westworld being the prime examples. This is Crichton's take on the FrankensteinThis adaptation of the early Michael Crichton novel arrived at a time when the late author's work was just starting to gain serious attention, be it from his novels and/or his directing. The Andromeda Strain and Westworld being the prime examples. This is Crichton's take on the Frankenstein story. Science creating a monster. And similar themes that he'll explore time and time again appear from the medical communities God complex to the dangers of artificial intelligence. By today's standards it's pretty tame for a thriller, but taken as an art film disguised as a thriller, it's very interesting. I could easily imagine this as an A24 release if made nowadays. The director Mike Hodges, films everything in shades of black, white, and grey. Even the comic book the officer guarding the room is reading is black and white. The only color that stands out is the blood that flows from a victims body. And the score, as brief as the segments are, are friggin Glenn Gould playing a classical piece. Plotwise, it's a team of doctors trying an experimental procedure to cure a patient of violent blackout seizures. They implaint electrodes in their brain to counteract the seizures. Of course, things go wrong. Like a lab rat hitting the same lever over and over to receive a treat, the patient involuntarily induces seizures to receive stimulation, only to overload and induce a trance like violent seizure. The cast includes George Segal as Harry Benson, who is introduced, by a series of photos, as a loving family man reduced to a ghost of his former self. The casting of jovial Segal as a man seemingly barely hanging on makes us care for him. He is matched by Joan Hackett, a much underrated actress from the 70's, as his psychiatrist. And almost a decade before John Carpenter's The Thing, Donald Moffat and Richard Dysart are part of the medical team, with Dysart representing the arrogance and hubris of the medical community. And Hodges does not think highly of the police. The movie opens with a police helicopter taking off, and ends with the apparent same helicopter landing that acts as bookends to what has happened. The police are portrayed as morons (there's a nice moment when an officer checks a hospital room and stops to fix himself in the mirror admiring just a moment too long) who shoot first and you know the rest. There's also the shots of the eye looking through a peephole towards the audience with the disembodied voice saying "you'll be good now" and "you're next". So a lot going on in a seemingly little movie that deserves a second, or very likely a first look.… Expand

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