It is pretty impossible to imagine that a movie that only cost slightly under a million dollars could be so well made. The premise is quite the mind-buster. A demonic cyborg from a future where computers have managed to take over the world, returns to the year 1984 to terminate the mother of the leader of a future rebellion that would turn the tides of the future war against the machines.
Along with this mechanical terror is Kyle Reese, a soldier from the future who volunteered for the dangerous mission based solely on love. In time, both Sarah Conner (the mother) and Kyle would end up joining forces to escape the wrath of the cyborg, and possibly even find the way to destroy it for good.

Cameron makes the wise decision to not have his movie bogged down in exposition. Of course, the standard introduction to the characters is present and accounted for, although there is an unusual approach taken here. For much of the first act, Cameron places the audience right with protagonist Sarah Conner, so that we may experience her fear and confusion as well. This kind of thing brings us almost uncomfortably close to the characters, which lets us get into their minds and experience all of their fears and emotions. The Terminator’s motive is not readily given out for the first act of the film, so we are just as confused as Sarah Conner as to what this being wants to do. Cameron establishes one of those atmospheres where one is constantly unsure of what is going to happen next. Characters that we come to love are ruthlessly killed off by the Terminator, which not only enhances our want for this thing to die, but our fear that maybe the lead characters won’t get away.

Indeed, this is one of those movies which has that terrifying never-ending nightmare feeling to it. The movie is driven by a breathless pace, with hardly any scene allowing the audience to catch a breath.

As for Cameron’s scene construction, it sparkles just as much as every other part of this movie. Like every one of his films, he shows an absolute love for everything that goes up on the screen, something that has made even the most serious of his pictures highly enjoyable. Cameron employs almost every technique available to him to make his movie work, and the effect is spellbinding. Cameron makes his first good choice by not choosing to use any overtly artsy or obvious camera angles. In fact, the camera photographs things to make them appear just like everyday life, which helps the film immensely.

The performances in the film are excellent. As protector Reese, Michael Biehn is appropriately cold when he needs to be, yet startlingly emotional and alive when called for. His chemistry with co-star Hamilton is mesmerizing, mainly because it is so believable. Biehn speaks his lines with conviction and heart, and one can tell that he absolutely loves what he is doing. His performance never travels into that terrible high camp zone, and the film benefits greatly from that. Linda Hamilton provides just the right amount of normal fuddy-duddy city girl and a willingness to survive that benefits her character. Basically, if her character had turned out to be only one of those good screamers, this whole film would have felt like a dumb slasher movie with a higher budget. But Hamilton is no slouch when it comes to her character. She has Sarah behave just how anyone else would behave, never becoming annoying or unbelievable. And in the few moments of this movie when he character becomes a bit hard-edged, Hamilton makes that change seem very believable and almost one hundred percent realistic. It’s just a shame that these two performers haven’t had the best of careers, because they are both extremely talented actors who deserve lots of attention.

The special effects of this picture are astounding. Working with such a low budget, one would think that Cameron would be hard pressed to create visuals that could seem like anything more than Roger Corman inspired. Thankfully, Cameron managed to hire geniuses of the special effects trade. Stan Winston and Fantasy II effects master Gene Warren join forces to bring some excellent matte work and composting to the picture. In the later half of The Terminator, the demonic cyborg has all its skin burned off and continues pursuing its victims in all its crome metal glory. The animatronic puppet by Stan Winston in amazing in that it moves with just the right amount of life to seem believable. It moves with a combination of grace and that hard metal edge that still makes it seem like an emotionless deadly cyborg. The wonderful design of the thing makes the numerous times it comes back to life after having been seemingly destroyed seem very realistic and even frightening. There are also some other effects in the movie used to bring the Terminator to life. Stop motion animation is used in one part where the Terminator pursues Sarah and Reese down an empty corridor, and it is quite convincing, matching well with the model effects work of Stan Winston.