Howwwwdeeyyy Ho everybody!

Welcome back to a brand new installment of the Festival of Fiendishness, the place where we take a look and your favorite villains and mine and break down why they’re awesome. Today’s super-awesome super-villain is Mister Can’t-Stop-Won’t-Stop himself: the Terminator.

And that introduction is longer than the intro we got in the first movie. You remember this cat (seriously, how can you forget, right?) Arnold Schwarzeneggar shows up butt-ass naked (yes, I know that was redundant—shut up) in a blaze of lightning, finds a group of miscreants, takes their clothes (by PUNCHING THEIR HEARTS OUT!), steals a car and gets about the business of killing one Sarah Connor. But he’s not smooth with it, he ain’t concerned about the boys in blue or being stealthy or anything: this dude finds a payphone, snatches the page out the phonebook and proceeds to drive across LA shooting all the Sarah Connors in the face. A lot. And this is all so she doesn’t survive long enough to give borth to the dude who leads the resistance against the machines in the future. Not too shabby a plot.

Now I realize there are a couple Millennials who frequent my blog—before you even start: they didn’t have cellphones or GPS in 1984. Everybody’s phone number and address was listed in the phone book and that book was connected to the payphone. What’s a payhone? I’m not the History Channel, man; that’s what Wikipedia is for. Look it up.

Now that that’s out the way—the Terminator chases the only surviving (and coincidentally, the correct) Sarah Connor to a club where he tries to shoot her ass IN PUBLIC! People are running and ducking and this man ain’t Puffy or Plaxico—he’s just some dude in an army jacket bucking for one girl. And then we meet the hero, Kyle Reese, who manages to get bit by Sarah Connor while saving her, arrested and given the “This muthafucka’s NUTS” treatment, and his ass whopped by the Terminator. I can’t even call him incompetent because my man is doing the best he can. I know you’re a fan of “I’ll be back,” but when it comes to villains, Reese gives THE most compelling line about a villain ever: “That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

And to prove his point, Arnold drives a TRUCK into the police station! A semi! Into the police station! And then capped like 30 cops for one girl! That is commitment.

Now, I would be remiss if I focused on Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s stellar portrayal of the T-101 and ignored Robert Patrick as the T-1000—the liquid metal man. Now, I have a couple issues with Terminator 2: first, how do you have a Terminator movie and the Terminator can’t kill anybody? (Watch it, Arnold doesn’t kill a soul). And second, this was the first movie ruined by the trailer.( Hey dummy, that Arnold was the good guy and the cop was the bad guy was supposed to be a SURPRISE!) Those items aside, the T-1000 was RAW!!  This cat picked a police officer to jack (since everything goes back in time naked) so he instantly had a uniform, a weapon, a squad car and access to the DMV database. In like 4 minutes. But that’s not what made him incredible. It’s not when he ran down a car going 60—on foot. It wasn’t when he impersonated John’s foster mom—which was pretty messed up (he even killed the dog!) It was that one scene where he comes up from the floor, mimics the man standing there, gave him the Michael Myers head cock, and sticks his finger in dude’s eye. T-1000 don’t play.

I’m kinda “Meh” about the 3^rd one. Ol girl was cool as the Terminator and I was happy they put a woman in the role. And she did everything all straight-faced and cold. That Terminator didn’t add much and I was over the whole “Arnold is the good guy” shit. However, Terminator: Salvation, that was pretty good.

The Terminator is awesome because he is unstoppable. He’s what Michael Myers would be if he wasn’t flammable. He’s what Megatron is without the whole galactic domination thing. He’s who the agents in the Matrix would be if they just shot the shit outta Keanu Reeves and skipped the special effect, Bullet-time bullshit. He’s awesome because, despite his/her appearance, in spite of the time/space continuum, regardless of whether it’s fresh and clean or a legless, half-melted quivering heap, the Terminator will not stop. Ever.  EVER. And that’s some scary shit.

What’s next? The second bloodsucker to grace this blog: the Vampire Lestat joins the Festival!