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From the director of Get Carter and the writer of Jurassic Park comes a chilling techno-thriller. George Segal is… The Terminal Man.

Harry Benson (Segal) is a brilliant computer scientist who suffers from seizures that induce blackouts and violent behaviour. Undergoing experimental surgery, electrodes are implanted in his brain to detect oncoming seizures and stop them with an electrical impulse. But the pleasure centre of his brain becomes addicted to the stimulus, triggering seizures at shorter and shorter intervals. If they become continuous the blackouts will be permanent, and Benson a homicidal killer.

Much admired by Terrence Malick and Stanley Kubrick, Mike Hodges’ film of Michael Crichton’s novel is an unnerving slow-burn masterpiece long overdue for re-evaluation.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

- High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of both the theatrical and director’s cuts of the film
- Original lossless mono audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Brand new audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger and Steven Mitchell
- A (Misunderstood) Modernist Masterpiece, a new visual essay by film scholar Josh Nelson
- Who Am I If Not Myself, a new visual essay by Howard S. Berger
- The Skin We Live In, a visual essay by film critic and historian Howard S. Berger on the conjunction of author Michael Crichton, Mike Hodges and cinematographer Richard H. Kline
- Mike Hodges on The Terminal Man, an archive interview
- Theatrical trailer
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sister Hyde
- Illustrated collector’s booklet containing new writing by author and critic Guy Adams, plus select archival material

Re-watching this on my old recorded from television tape, I was rather taken with the impressive use of blank space in the film. Even without it being a full widescreen production a lot of the characters are framed in such a way that they are on the margins of the frame and there are large amounts of clinically empty space surrounding them. Figures framed off-centre against white walls that are both antiseptically impersonal and psychologically blank (much as they were at the endings of both Psycho and The Boston Strangler). Also (and I don't know how different the director's cut will be from the television version I have) I love the bookending usage of the helicopter to begin and end the film, with the knowledge of where it comes into play in the story enhancing the impact of that framing device. Plus it uses the Goldberg Variations seventeen years before they turn up as another serial killer's motif in The Silence of the Lambs! I wonder if that could actually have been a conscious reference back to The Terminal Man, given that it also involves a main female authority figure somewhat awkwardly being the surrogate for the audience into empathising with the mind of a killer, when the killer themselves does not (could not even if they wanted to) show signs of remorse for their actions!