The Terminal Man (1974) on Netflix
Harry Benson, a computer scientist with epilepsy, has seizures that leave him violent and in blackouts. An experimental brain implant is meant to stop them. His psychiatrist, Janet Ross, objects.
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- IMDb5.6/102,914 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes53%
Trailer
Plot summary
Harry Benson is a computer scientist in his thirties with epilepsy. His seizures bring blackouts, and he wakes in unfamiliar surroundings with signs that he has been violent. He is also convinced that computers will rise up against people. Benson is diagnosed with Acute Disinhibitory Lesion syndrome and consents to Stage Three, an experimental psychosurgical procedure in which surgeons implant electrodes in his brain. The electrodes are meant to detect the onset of a seizure and stop it with an electrical impulse. His psychiatrist, Dr. Janet Ross, opposes the operation, afraid that joining a man to a machine he distrusts will leave him psychotic.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Terminal Man (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Hodges wanted to shoot in black and white but the studio would not let him. He found the look instead in a book of Edward Hopper's paintings picked up at Pickwick's bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard: "I opened it and there was my film. There was the loneliness of urban America on every page."
- Michael Crichton was hired to write and direct the adaptation of his own novel, but Warners felt his script had departed too much from the source material. "I thought I'd given them a terrific script and they hired another director," said Crichton. "I was very disappointed not to direct."
- When Mike Kaplan, a Warner Bros international marketing executive, tried to override the studio's decision not to release the film in Britain, he sought the help of Stanley Kubrick, a Hodges admirer, who interrupted his explanation with "I've already seen it and it's terrific."
- For its screening at the 2003 Edinburgh Film Festival, Hodges edited a "director's cut" himself, removing the opening expository scene of the doctor looking at photographs of Harry Benson, a scene production studio notes had insisted would give the audience "someone to root for".
