NAMELESS

NAMELESS. Avi Nasher, dir. USA: MGM/UA, 1991. Michael Biehn, stars.

Biehn's character is turned "into a killing machine" by a treatment in "an artificial womb—a machine which takes over every bodily function, forcing its occupant to undergo a mental, and[,] to a degree, physical regression to the fetal state. The machine has a Gigeresque quality to it" (Sheldon Teitelbaum in Cinefantastique 21.5 [April 1991]: 18-19). Cf. psychological manipulation in mechanical wombs in J. Haldeman's All My Sin's Remembered and R. Silverberg's The World Inside, and, prior to decanting ("birth") in A. Huxley's Brave New World (all under Fiction). The casting of Biehn would have reverberations for the generation that grew up on THE TERMINATOR, with Biehn playing Kyle Reese, a heroic human opponent of Terminators.