It may not have been the highest grossing film of 1984, but James Cameron’s The Terminator was certainly one of that year’s most influential films. To this day—in fact, even more frequently these days—it is the most frequently referred to film when discussing the trepidations surrounding AI. It was a masterclass in tightrope walking between the action, thriller, horror, sci-fi, and even romance genres. It checked a lot of boxes and checked them well. But, at its core, it was a visually and tonally dour movie about a killer robot. And, when it came to the films it inspired, most of them carried that core close to their hearts as opposed to the film’s phenomenal genre blending.
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That’s all a nice way of saying that the films which were inspired by The Terminator weren’t half as good as The Terminator. Even still, they have their bursts of inspiration and entertainment value, and the following five examples are all worth watching at least once for fans of Cameron’s classic.
5) Chopping Mall
A spooky sci-fi cheese-fest perfect for Halloween viewing, Chopping Mall is a goofy slasher movie with killer robots instead of hockey mask-wearing machete choppers. It’s also one stuffed to the gills with legends of the genre, such as Re-Animator‘s Barbara Crampton, Gremlins‘ Dick Miller (who also had a bit role in The Terminator), Friday the 13th Part 2‘s Russell Todd, Night of the Comet‘s Kelli Maroney, Child’s Play 2‘s Gerrit Graham, and Piranha‘s Paul Bartel.
It’s hard to imagine Chopping Mall existing in 1986 had The Terminator not been such a big success two years prior. In fact, the hair style of Maroney’s lead character is an homage to Linda Hamilton’s hair in Terminator.
Stream Chopping Mall on Prime Video.
4) Universal Soldier
One of the great Jean-Claude Van Damme movies also just so happened to be one of his biggest financial successes. And, while it’s tonally different, it’s hard not to see the influences of Cameron’s classic on this Roland Emmerich shoot-em-up.
However, the even clearer influence is Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which came out one year prior to Universal Soldier. After all, this movie has two cybernetically-enhanced humans bashing each other to bits for 90 minutes. Replace one of them with a liquid metal version and that’s T2.
Stream Universal Soldier on Paramount+.
3) Almost Human
Even with J. J. Abrams Bad Robot behind it and Karl Urban, Michael Ealy, Pirates of the Caribbean‘s Mackenzie Crook, Lili Taylor, and Minka Kelly on the cast list, Almost Human lasted only 13 episodes on Fox. Even still, this series about a detective in 2048 who is partnered with an android certainly does have some Terminator-esque vibes.
Granted, you can also pick up some Blade Runner and RoboCop here and there as well, but Terminator came first, and with it the concept of an android designed for fighting. It also had a skin lab, which of course brings to mind the scene in the original Terminator where Schwarzenegger is adjusting the fake skin on his (its) face.
2) Hardware
When it was released, many critics accused Richard Stanley’s Hardware of being derivative of both The Terminator and Ridley Scott’s Alien. And fair enough, because it definitely is.
However, it still manages to pull off a believable and depressing post-apocalypse atmosphere. Furthermore, its mechanical killbot feels just different enough from the T-800 to stand on its fearsome own. It can occasionally be a bit too grimy for its own good (the pervy neighbor character was a bit much), but it’s a memorable look into Stanley’s wild mind and it should have made a bigger star of Stacey Travis.
1) Split Second
Split Second is basically the brief future war sections of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day if they didn’t occur after judgement day and focused on one human, like Kyle Reese, in pursuit of the T-800, as opposed to the other way around. In other words, this film has those apocalyptic scenes’ hazy aura and grimy filter but there are still buildings standing.
The plot follows Rutger Hauer’s Harley Stone, a lone wolf cop in 2008 London, which has had major portions flooded thanks to global warming. But the bigger problem is that an eight-foot tall, toothed monster with what appears to be a visor across its eyes killed Stone’s partner and left a literal mark on him. And, with that literal mark came a cognitive one, as well. Stone can hear the beast’s heartbeat, and now he’s tracking it down to exact vengeance for his late partner.
Stream Split Second for free with ads on Tubi.
