The ROBOTIC menace
February 21st 2007 00:12
It got me thinking about the menacing robots and evil automatons in horror movies. There have been a number of them over the years, most of them kinda silly, and a lot of them feature in movies that wouldn’t really be classed as horror flics. But a clutch of them have delivered enough hard steely thrills and cold metallic chills within the framework of what we’d like to call horror.
There have been many rogue circuits providing nuts and bolts action which although threatening, aren’t essentially part of a larger horror picture; movies like Runaway (1984), Screamers (1995) and Red Planet (2000), which involved small metallic beasties.
There have been monstrous robots which in the context of their respective movies are menacing, but not really terrifying, such as ED-209 (RoboCop, 1987) and T-1000 (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991).
Here's the trailer to The Terminator, which depicts it as a sf-stalk'n'slash flick:
There have been powerful robots capable of mass destruction, but are ultimately benevolent such as Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and The Iron Giant (1999). And robots designed for good which have started to act wayward becoming rogue menaces to society. I’m talking about the Nexus-6 replicants from Blade Runner (1982). Novelist Philip K. Dick (whose novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was the source for Blade Runner) frequently writes about un-user-friendly automatons.
Finally, the computer threat, but not in the cyber vein, instead I’m referring to computers which have real nastiness programmed into them. The diabolical Proteus from Donald Cammell’s Demon Seed (1977), now there’s a reprehensible thinking machine!
HAL 9000, the massive computer intelligence onboard the spacecraft bound for Jupiter in Stanley Kubrick’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is a concern. It’s just banks and banks of processors, but it does have a camera-eye and it can read lips! And it doesn’t like astronauts mission, so it sabotages it. In one of cinemas great scenes of human/machine juxtaposition Captain Bowman slowly disengages HAL while the computer tries valiantly to change the human’s mind.
Let’s hope when total automation inexorably arrives it doesn’t spark the kind of machine revolt depicted in The Terminator's prologue of future carnage.
* the images on this page were taken from the following wikipedia pages:
Transformers (film), Westworld, The Terminator, Saturn 3 Demon Seed
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Comment by Damo
I do like Westworld for it freshness and cleverness. However the sequels were terrible.
Saturn 3, yes it is a guilty pleasure.
I can just feel the pressure building from the kids to go see Transformers.
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
In your robots, you've forgotten about No. 5 from Short Circuit. That was pretty scary when they were hunting No. 5 down after he 'came alive' and left the compound!! hehehe. Okay, so maybe not that scary.
Comment by Adele
Lost Fanatic
Day Break TV
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Kylie, Short Circuit. Trust you to mention that gobbler. J/K. Have you seen the Transformers trailer on the big screen? It rocks!!
Adele,
Yes, I remember Max the floating robot from The Black Hole. I did consider mentioning him. I saw the film recently, funnily enough. OMG! It is soooooo bad. Much worse than I remembered in fact.
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
Of course the last movie I saw was Music & Lyrics with my sister on the weekend (why, why, why do I let her talk me into chick flicks????) and I'm not sure that the transformer movie is aimed at the same demographic audience as a chick flick.
Comment by Francis
Passionate Apathy
On the contrary, HAL had "The greatest enthusiasm for the mission." He just wasn't properly programmed to handle the latent guilt he felt over knowing (and withholding the knowledge from Discovery's crew) the real reason for the Jupiter mission.
Adele:
The Black Hole sucked so badly that my ears popped every time I walked by that aisle in the video store. I had a violent reaction to the name "Disney" for over a decade after that atrocity.
I did see it again a few years ago; get three sarcastic smart-asses, a bottle of brandy and a copy of Black Hole for a great game of Mystery Science Theater!
Granted they were TV rather than movies, but the Daleks of Doctor Who always conveyed a strong sense of inhuman menace.
Comment by JoshZ
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
my apologies for that oversight. It's been ahwile since I've seen it, and I must have forgotten that crucial plot point, how dreadful of me!
The Daleks chilled me as a child too, even though they were so cumbersome. And what about the Cybermen?!
And if we are talking TV, then what about the Cylons!!! Both new and old versions!
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
I'm not sure how this Transformer movie is going to go over... I hope they don't butcher it...
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Butcher Transformers?? How would they do that? They've taken liberties with some of the robot designs, but I tell ya, they look friggin' amazing! The CGI work is astonishing!
I reckon it'll be the huge thunderous spectacle that War of the Worlds was ... y'know, taken with a grain or two of salt.
Comment by Francis
Passionate Apathy
No biggie- the reason for HAL's breakdown was spelled out in the book. In the movie it was just inferred, through his symptom of creating false failure readings in the unit that kept Discovery in contact with Earth. HAL was dreading the time when Mission Control would have to tell Bowman and Poole the real reason for the Jupiter mission.
The Cybermen had a definite creep factor, but for me the non-humanoid shape of the Daleks added a sense of realism to their menace. I've always found non-humanoid aliens more convincing than the obvious man-in-a-suit types, going back to the Horta on Star Trek.
The old Cylons were hard to take seriously as a menace- then again, the entire original Galactica was hard to take seriously. The new series is darker and grittier- and so are the Cylons. At least a machine programmed to kill has some level of predictability, but religious zealots are whackos capable of anything.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Cheers for the comments!
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Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile