#The terminal man movie#
#The terminal man series#

Benson must wear a dogtag that says to call University Hospital if he is injured, as his power pack may emit radiation. Despite the concerns voiced, the team decides to go ahead with the operation.ДЇorty electrodes are implanted into Benson's brain, controlled by a small computer that is powered by a plutonium power pack in his shoulder. Ellis rationalizes his approach by pointing out that he is not convinced that not operating on Benson will do him any favors his condition threatens his life and those of others, has already undermined his legal status three times, and is worsening. It would prevent a seizure but not cure Benson's personality disorder. Ellis admits that what they are doing is not a cure, simply a way to stimulate the brain when the computer senses a seizure coming on. Manon raises concerns that Benson is psychotic and predicts that the crimes he commits during the blackouts will not be curtailed. The ramifications of the procedure are questioned by the NPS's staff psychiatrist, Janet Ross, and later by her former teacher, Manon, an emeritus professor. Two NPS surgeons, John Ellis and Robert Morris, are to perform the unprecedented surgery. He is a prime candidate for an operation to implant an electronic 'brain pacemaker' in the amygdala region of his brain in order to control the seizures, which will be performed in the Neuro-Psychiatric Service (NPS) of University Hospital. During these seizures, he severely beats two people the day before his admission, he was arrested after attacking a third. He often has seizures followed by blackouts, and then wakes up hours later with no knowledge of what he has done. Harold Franklin 'Harry' Benson, a computer scientist in his mid-thirties, is described as suffering from 'psychomotor epilepsy' following a car crash two years earlier.

#The terminal man movie#

So a lot going on in a seemingly little movie that deserves a second, or very likely a first look.The events in the novel take place between March 9вЂ“13, 1971. There's also the shots of the eye looking through a peephole towards the audience with the disembodied voice saying 'you'll be good now' and 'you're next'. The police are portrayed as morons (there's a nice moment when an officer checks a hospital room and stops to fix himself in the mirror admiring just a moment too long) who shoot first and you know the rest. The movie opens with a police helicopter taking off, and ends with the apparent same helicopter landing that acts as bookends to what has happened. And Hodges does not think highly of the police. And almost a decade before John Carpenter's The Thing, Donald Moffat and Richard Dysart are part of the medical team, with Dysart representing the arrogance and hubris of the medical community. He is matched by Joan Hackett, a much underrated actress from the 70's, as his psychiatrist. The casting of jovial Segal as a man seemingly barely hanging on makes us care for him.

#The terminal man series#

The cast includes George Segal as Harry Benson, who is introduced, by a series of photos, as a loving family man reduced to a ghost of his former self. Like a lab rat hitting the same lever over and over to receive a treat, the patient involuntarily induces seizures to receive stimulation, only to overload and induce a trance like violent seizure. They implaint electrodes in their brain to counteract the seizures. Plotwise, it's a team of doctors trying an experimental procedure to cure a patient of violent blackout seizures.

And the score, as brief as the segments are, are friggin Glenn Gould playing a classical piece. The only color that stands out is the blood that flows from a victims body. Even the comic book the officer guarding the room is reading is black and white. The director Mike Hodges, films everything in shades of black, white, and grey. I could easily imagine this as an A24 release if made nowadays. By today's standards it's pretty tame for a thriller, but taken as an art film disguised as a thriller, it's very interesting. And similar themes that he'll explore time and time again appear from the medical communities God complex to the dangers of artificial intelligence. This is Crichton's take on the Frankenstein story. The Andromeda Strain and Westworld being the prime examples. This is Crichton's take on the Frankenstein This adaptation of the early Michael Crichton novel arrived at a time when the late author's work was just starting to gain serious attention, be it from his novels and/or his directing. This adaptation of the early Michael Crichton novel arrived at a time when the late author's work was just starting to gain serious attention, be it from his novels and/or his directing.