I figured I will use my latest collectible to also bring up my first contact with Jim Cameron's first creation - The Terminator. While the first film more or less went under the radar where I grew up (which was Poland until my late teens), the story of the sequel was of course something else, like in the rest of the world, and the experience of its arrival and promotion in the mid-Europe I described along with some interesting tidbits HERE. It's a much bigger article describing T2's promotion, merchandise and more in mid Europe. But for now, as a prologue of sort, I want to show a very rare vintage VHS tape and mention my first experience with The Terminator, or, as it was translated to in Poland, Electronic Murderer - a title which I think is pretty good and eerie for a horror film.
Saw it first as a kid in the winter of 1990/1991, late at night. I was just passing by the living room in which my adult sister was watching it with my mom and they immediately let me know that I can't accompany them because of the nature of this film. That only raised my interest more and I snuck back in and watched from behind the couch where they couldn't see me (I joined in when the Terminator drives up to the wrong Sarah Connor's house. What a way to start!). My sister was seemingly into low budget, supernatural horrors set in large cities because before that night, I saw them watching movies like Child's Play, Maniac Cop, Goodnight God Bless (a UK horror about a mysterious, but supernatural character dressed as a priest stalking a mother and her daughter in a city). So then a machine from another world stalking a woman in a dark city was right up that alley. Since I have never seen Arnold Schwarzenegger before, the image of the Terminator (or as he was 'translated' in the film as - a Cyborg) and its world was absolutely terrifying. For me he wasn't human, and by that I mean I haven't thought of the actor as an actor, I bought into him being a machine, a disguise, he was like a manequin with lifeless eyes to me. To this day I think that as far as eerie atmosphere, only The Exorcist III 's vibe is on pair. They have a unique and creepy feel, constant on every turn in every scene.
I like the way I read the film and the title character at the time. For me, the title character was a device. It was it, not him. While all those other killers in the abovementioned films were either undead or possessed, this one felt like some possessed, insentient device. I mean, I knew it isn’t possesed but it looked like it came from Hell - the Future world looked like a nightmare, a place of endless night and the ever present shadows and creepy backlit silhouettes. For me the Terminator machine might as well have been a device of some evil force from that other world. I didn't look at it as evil, it was just a machine like a printer, but programmed by an unseen evil of some kind. That point of view was reinforced by the scene of the destruction of the Terminator, which is accompanied by an eerie choir music that would easily fit into Omen, and the electrical arcs dancing around the flattening machine were like an evil force leaving it. That was my perception of it then which I find interesting today.
At the time I found a few parallels with Child's Play (remember, the first Chucky movie had a serious tone and character was nothing like what it is now). The ending with burning Chucky/Terminator being crushed (both 'gated off' by the female characters, both 'dying' slowly), and the idea of an inanimate (on their own), non sentient object being driven by an 'evil' force - in the case of Chucky, a spirit of a murderer, in the case of the Terminator, a programming set in motion by some shadowy, unimaginable forces, only spoken of in the film, from a world that, for me back then, looked fitting for the shadow demons from 1990's Ghost. Now, you might ask what’s with all those demonic posession comparisons, well at the time there were plenty of horrors, known and obscure, with that subject matter, and the choir music used in the film evoked comparisons to those, if just in figurative terms.
I'm still mesmerized by the look and feel of the film. Again, I would say the only other films that have so masterfully crafted such a constant feel of dread, where even regular city evokes a sense of fear and a feel of being in a nightmare, are Exorcist III, and to a lesser extent Angel Heart. The Terminator had a terrific Noir cinematography
But, at the time, the film came and went (in my household), and another horror popped into the VCR the next Friday night. I thought of the movie as terrifying, just like most of those other Friday horrors my sister was renting from a tiny rental place in a small alley, in which you couldn't find one big hit. As it later appeared, it was the only place that had The Terminator in the entire city. It wasn't until about 2 years after T2 came out that I revisited the first movie and was shocked at how well it held up and how radically different in some ways it was from its famous successor. What I mean by that is that the movie was very low key, felt very claustrophobic, in a stark contrast to its mighty, history changing, epic sequel. It was like watching The Exorcist after seeing Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. And what I meant by claustrophobic is that even though the action takes place mostly in one of the largest cities, it feels as if this city is in a dream, as if no one can help them, no one is an insider of this nightmare world of three. Actually, Sarah reflects that feeling in a scripted but omitted scene, in which she says to Reese in a motel "It's like, there's you and me, and him...but nobody else can understand or help or even touch us."
And since even at the time when it was recently produced, it was so hard to find anywhere, it's safe to assume the number of copies was very low to put it mildly. I have been hunting for this tape for years. And it's not even the price, it's the fact that every one of my bid battles were lost, and I was bidding with dollars against Polish currency! There was a period of couple of years when there weren't any available anywhere to purchase, and if they surfaced somewhere, they were sold immediately by the equivalence of hundreds of dollars! Finally managed to stumble upon it at the right time, win a bid fight recently and get the tape, which was my holy grail of collectibles so to speak. I could never confirm whether it was produced in 1989 or 1990, but most of my research points to 1989 so that's the date I'm going with. If you're wondering why did it took so long to land on VHS in Poland, well, the film run in theaters in 1987 there, and the country was still under Eastern influence which did not allow for much of the Western and US products and arts. Interestingly enough even thought the film has been translated as Electronic Murderer and that title occupies the back cover as well, the front and spine still have 'Terminator' on them. To add to the confusion, in the film, the word 'Terminator' is replaced by the word 'Cyborg', and the designation 'Electronic Murderer' is only mentioned in reference to HKs, weirdly enough. Currently in Poland thought, the official title has been indeed "Terminator" now since the release of a second VHS in 1992. Only the very first version was was released under the title Electronic Murderer. It is also the only VHS, other than Norwegian one, that features James Cameron's painting as a cover. I love that painting and it’s my favorite inage related to the first film and one of my favorite Jim Cameron paintings. So that’s another reason why I had to have that release. I remember at the time, after I saw the film and I was looking at that painting on the cover, it creeped me out, as if it was staring back at me. Hey, I was a kid who just watched a terrifying R rated horror.
The theatrical poster I saw for the first time about 2 years after I saw the film, in a French shopping catalog on the VHS section. I thought they used a scene from the Police Station shootout as the cover, mistaking the red laser lines as emergency lights (when I first saw that poster my memory of the film was a bit groggy at that point understandably). However, all of the latter VHS versions of the Terminator, starting with 1992 version, had the theatrical poster on them, which makes this first VHS release that much special for many reasons
Another interesting thing to note is that there is one extra line added to the text from the beginning of the film in translation. Not a visual, but an audio addition, since the narrator/voice over person reads the translation. As oppose to "Tonight.." being the end of the backstory text, another added line to the introductory text is "On our own eyes", which I think is a fitting, eerie addition.
The color timing and the contrast is also very different from North American VHS releases, partially due to the fact it's in PAL system as oppose to NTSC. Those tend to be much darker. But while I've seen parts of the film on VHS' from few different European countries, there aren't many countries that had a version that would match this one visually. So far I only found the original Hungarian official release to be a match, but. I stumbled upon information that it may be actually a UK version because it was at least produced in UK. I’ve also seen clips from UK’s TV spot in 1990 and it looks like an exact match so highely likely, but can’t confirm for sure untill I’ll an actual original UK vhs.
In this first version of The Terminator, known as Electronic Murderer, the blacks, the shadows, are very strong and deep, and the overall look is very dark, but proportionally contrasted. Meaning, it's not like the brightness had been dialed down or the contrast just lifted up, it has deep blacks which create a look closer to (in the night scenes only), for a lack of better comparison, Piranha II Flying Killers perhaps, which I had also seen around that time. The palette is predominantly grey, the movie has a look of a "concrete" to it. I think it gives it a very good, moody horror look, and a unique one for the film, not matching any US release (latter VHS versions, which appeared as soon as 1992, were visually completely different, as they all clearly had a US laserdisc and then US VHS transfers). I'm a big fan of that version. Only few weeks ago some footage from that particular release surfaced for the first time in 3 decades and I was able to take few screenshots.
To put it in perspective, here's a comparison with the current Blu Ray release. I personally think the horror lighting on this VHS release fits the movie better than what's on Blu ray. As an example, not only the VHS shot is more eerie, but the shadow nearly obscures the eyes, taking off humanity of the character. Not so much on BluRay
For me the bluray image ruins the horror mood and visuals found in the 1990 Polish VHS. Some more examples below
The bluray completely lacks the mood and even reveals what shouldnt be, which is the undamaged eyes of the Terminator behind sunglasses. While one can argue this setting is a Police station, it shouldnt and rarely do matter for stylized movies such as horror films which can make any setting spooky and dark (such as hospital, as in Hallowen II or Exorcist III). Also, it can be argued that since it’s a small Police division in a small old building, it would be permittable within the story to have a darker, dirtier look to it
Today, The Terminator for me is on the equal with T2, which means they're both my favorite films of all time. While being so very different, they're bonded by, among other things, the serious-as-a-heart-attack tone. Both films from my personal experience are enjoyed by people who not only aren't science fiction (or action) fans, but by people who completely dislike science fiction or action and think of the genre as childish. Both films were always spoken about between parents and uncles, and we, kids, were just lucky to take a peak or watch it with them - that's my childhood experience and perspective. They were adult R rated films, and that was their target audience
The description on the back of the tape is pretty short and goes as follows:
ELECTRONIC MURDERER
A cyborg sent by different civilizations arrives on Earth, his task is murdering the mother of a yet unborn child, which will be a leader of people's revolt against robots.
