Gem – Terminator 2
The idea of arguing over which display of total disregard for human life is “the best” is unnerving. Of course, we’re here to debate over the depiction of such terror within the four walls of cinema. There are a number of criteria you could instigate to determine how a spree is more violent than another. I’m choosing to ignore the most obvious ones such as body count, blood spatter projection, etc. My choice for the most violent spree in cinema clutches at the title because it stems from the cold, calculated liquid metal hand of Terminator 2’s T-1000. It originates from the CPU of a friggin’ robot.
When you think about it, violent rampages in film are more often than not the result of a human being’s decision to go loco. War, injustice, being called chicken…these are a few of the reasons characters have for going nuts. They’re the collateral damage of an emotional fallout. For the T-1000 there are no such justifications. His (yeah, yeah robots have no gender) reign of blood across Los Angeles is the result of his circuitry.
The T-1000’s jaunt to track down and kill John Connor, a teenage punk who’ll one day become the leader of the resistance, is relentless. He’ll literally stop at nothing. This is perhaps why he’s so terrifying, as explained to Connor’s mother, Sarah in the first film: he cannot be reasoned with.
Okay, okay, you wanna know why I think his spree is the most violent? Simple: he’s programmed to efficiently kill humans. Upon arriving in L.A. he quickly kills a cop in order to assume his identity and gain access to his records. His hunt begins and he doesn’t give a toot about human loss.
During his first tussle with the T-800, a poor bystander gets mowed down in a flying wave of bullets. When he narrows down his search for Connor, he becomes more cunning. Not content with mere information from Connor’s foster parents – he kills them both. Assuming the form of his foster Mom, his arm morphs into an elongated blade and shoots forth through his foster Dad’s head, spearing the milk carton he’s chugging from. It’s quick, ruthless and horrifying.
That’s why his chosen method is so violent. He can adapt to his situation. Arriving at Pescadero, the institution in which Connor’s birth mother is incarcerated, he sneaks up behind a guard. Again assuming his form, he mercilessly stabs him through the eye, lifting up the twitching body of Lewis as he flails in the final throes of life. The fundamental fact that he cannot be talked out of violence lends his spree all the more power.
Stealing law enforcement vehicles he takes out two more innocents; a bike cop and a helicopter pilot (“Get out.”) From what we’ve seen before we know how he’ll make these two suffer. After delivering the deadpan line, “Say, that’s a nice bike,” to the cop the scene cuts elsewhere. But, we know he’s in for a world of pain.
So far, his body count has unraveled to serve the purpose of him gaining access to John Connor. As the film reaches its climax, the T-1000 gets vicious. His knowledge of human relationships is used to exploit the bond between Sarah and her son. Cornering Sarah, he threatens her life and then gets vile. He stabs her through the shoulder, no intention of killing her, twisting the long blade as her bones crunch. In order for the T-1000 to mimic Sarah’s voice she must “call to John.” He’s unrelenting, knowing she’ll do anything to protect her son but even she cannot endure the pain he dishes out. In his last moments, it’s the emotional violence that turns him from a killer into a total bastard.
His spree might not be the biggest in terms of on screen blood loss, or even an immeasurable body count, but his violence is the most basic. Life becomes expendable to him in order to affect the outcome of a war on a post-apocalyptic earth. A war that can be won by his kind. By the machines.
We may be offered only a hint at his propensity for suffering, but his true menace extends into an unimaginable future where violence prevails and no human is safe.