Patrick McElroy Uncovers "Great Trash" in LADY TERMINATOR (1988, dir by H. Tjut Djalil, Indonesia)

Legendary film critic Pauline Kael once remarked, “Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them.” While there are many unpopular opinions of Kael’s I would disagree with, this is one that I’ve grown to agree with.

Her words came to mind recently when I viewed Lady Terminator, a low budget Indonesian rip-off of James Cameron’s classic The Terminator. My original piece this week was maybe going to be on a pristine gem such as Kenji Mizoguchi’s Miss Oyu, or a renowned classic such as Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse, but this film interrupted my routine so much that I felt I had to share its absurdity.

The film’s plot is as ridiculous as its title. An ancient curse inhabits a young American woman visiting Indonesia. It makes her indestructible as it sends her out to kill a young pop-star as part of a revenge against her ancient ancestor. Almost the entire cast of the film consists of actors whose only credit is this film, which comes as no surprise, because each of their performances are laughably awful, with many of them being dubbed into English.

The dialogue is some of the worst I’ve ever heard. It’s so bland - with rushed delivery from the actors - that it offers more humor than most comedies in recent memory. There’s one scene in particular that I still find myself laughing at, when two characters are chatting by a fire - the cliched backstory scene - and though the writers are trying to create sensitive dialogue, they  sound as if they were from another planet, guessing what humans sounded like.

Hollywood often plays it safe and makes films that are typical mediocrity; here people who had little knowledge failed so miserably that one can’t not be amused by it, so it’s great trash. This movie is on par with Plan 9 from Outer Space and The Room, where all the wrong things come together and make something that burns into your mind. Like the great masterpieces, you cannot help but appreciate them.

Patrick McElroy is a movie writer and movie lover based in Los Angeles. Check out his other writing at: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.mcelroy.3726 or his IG: @mcelroy.patrick