The Terminal Man

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

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]

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

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

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

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

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]