CAMERON, James

(1956-)

   US film-maker. Originally a special-effects man and art director with Roger CORMAN's New World - where he worked on BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980), ANDROID (1982) and several others including ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) for which New World did the special effects - JC made an inauspicious debut as director with Piranha II: Flying Killers (1981; vt Piranha II: The Spawning; PIRANHA). However, he made a major impression with his second film, The TERMINATOR (1984), a TIME-TRAVEL thriller with a killer ROBOT. This low-budget success secured JC - and his then wife and producer-writer partner Gale Anne HURD - the plum assignment of ALIENS (1986), the follow-up to Ridley SCOTT's ALIEN (1979). Having improved on the original - especially in his 150min director's cut, later released on video - with this humanistic action movie of alien warfare, JC achieved a free hand with The ABYSS (1989), the most expensive of several underwater sf movies released at that time, and managed four-fifths of an excellent film before fumbling with a climactic deep-sea close encounter; it was a box-office disappointment. The half-hour longer The Abyss: Special Edition director's cut, (1992) is not notably superior. Following this JC separated personally from Hurd - who had in the meantime produced ALIEN NATION (1988) and TREMORS (1990) - although the couple stayed together to direct and produce TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991), a huge-budgeted box-office success, perhaps the most violent pacifist movie ever made. Critical response to Cameron's comedy thriller True Lies (1994), not sf but again starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, was mixed.

   KN/PN

   See also: CINEMA; HORROR IN SF.