Under The Terminator's Skin

The unnerving score of Under the Skin combined with The Terminator. I thought that both the scene and score selection was spot on and fit well together, that the narrative was clear, and that the chase scenes actually had more tension to them than they did in the original. Only critique, fairly minor: I would've spent a little less time on the final chase to allow for more plot before then.

Terminator has a very basic plot, which makes it a perfect candidate for a short film. The editor has done a great job. Nothing feels rushed, there are no jarring cuts and everything flows as if the film had always been this length. The limited dialogue and choice of music serve well in maintaining tension.

I dropped a point for audio editing because I felt that the dialogue could have done with being a bit louder. The music often drowned it out, but then again, that may have been the editor's intention.

Video quality was slightly pixelated. This wasn't too much of a problem for the most part, but it became very noticeable during shots of the exploded truck.

Narratively this was generally fine, although it was slightly odd that Sarah goes from cowering and confused ("please don't kill me") to suddenly trying to save Kyle's life.

All in all though, this is a good edit. Many memorable parts of the film have been seamlessly blended into something nugget sized. Well worth a watch.

I absolutely adore Terminator 1, and I really like Terminator 2, but all the other sequels didn't do it for me.
I was intrigued to see this experiment of telling the story of Terminator 1 as a short-movie. As an experimental short-movie I think it works and I like the new music, it gives it a more ethereal atmosphere.

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The narrative works for the short movie. The explanation for the terminator wanting to kill her: "I didn't do anything", "But you will", makes it work for the short-movie, but it's lacking something crucial when it isn't told what she will do that causes all this timetravel. In some way it relies on the viewer already knowing the story of Terminator.

This 15-minute-movie also shows greatly that for a real movie more time is needed to give scenes their emotional impact. For example at the end when Sarah Connor's protector Kyle died, it had no impact for her as she met him just a few minutes ago. And when the terminator was pressed down by the machine she had that exhausted look on her face and a certain hate and rage in her eyes and a triumphant feeling of accomplishment but in this movie it wasn't earned at all and so the emotional payoff was not there.

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Still I recommend it because this works as an experimental short movie and the editing is done really well and because of the interesting and eery music used.

Dom brilliantly retells the original 1984 film, capturing most of the major details and driving it all to the haunting "Under the Skin" score. The music is integrated so well, I actually had to check to make sure he wasn't just using the original soundtrack!

Dom is able to play the movie mostly silently, telling nearly the entire tale with visuals alone, which makes Sarah's story all the more visceral and nightmarish.

The only plot element left out is the issue of John Connor's parentage. But considering the kind-of creepy way it played out in the original movie, maybe that isn't such a bad thing. Perhaps Dom is implying that in this alternate history, John actually has a different father!

I feel bad not giving this edit the full highest marks. There's nothing that it does wrong; it's just that a couple of the other shorts in this consecution were so inventive that I had to rate them even higher, so I had to indicate a slightly different level of enjoyment. But there's nothing that I would have told Dom to do differently.

If you love the original films, this is a must-see!

I absolutely loved this. Great re-telling of the Terminator with a brand new eerie soundtrack which gives it a completely different tone which is more akin to horror than sci-fi action. Strangely, I was reminded of "Drive". But perhaps that was synesthesia at work.