A gender-flipped riff on The Terminator, 1991 killer robot thriller Eve Of Destruction is on Prime Video in the UK – and it’s quite a time capsule…
In 2003, sci-fi sequel Terminator 3 dared to ask: what if a killer robot looked like a lady? The thing was, another movie – itself inspired by The Terminator – had asked that same question over a decade earlier.
Eve Of Destruction, released in 1991, is a marvellously trashy genre offering that feels like a compendium of every cop thriller and sci-fi cliché you could possibly think of. It’s slow in places, and relentlessly silly, but really gets going in a bullet-strewn, wildly violent third act. Oh, and if you’re interested, it’s currently streaming on Prime Video in the UK.
Gregory Hines is the nominal protagonist as McQuade, a hangdog colonel turned robot hunter. The true star, though, is Danish actor Renée Soutendijk, who appeared in Paul Verhoeven’s Spetters and The Fourth Man before heading to the US to make her American debut in this slab of madness. Soutendijk was perhaps intrigued by the opportunity to play two roles: buttoned-down scientist Dr Eve Simmons and the deadly military robot she’s made in her own image, Eve 8.
For reasons known only to herself, Dr Simmons also decided to give Eve 8 her own memories – which includes a side helping of childhood trauma and father issues – as well as a hefty sexual appetite. These alone might sound like a recipe for disaster, but Dr Simmons and her military colleagues also decided to implant the robot with a tiny nuclear bomb.
For reasons too bewildering to outline here, Eve 8 is sent to a bank, becomes a bystander in an armed robbery, and is damaged in the ensuing gunfight. That damage interferes with Eve 8’s programming, which leads her off on a violent rampage across more than one US city. To quote The Simpsons, “Yep, here’s your problem: someone set this thing to evil.”
This, somehow, still doesn’t capture Eve Of Destruction in all its oddness. Directed and co-written by Duncan Gibbins, its models are clearly 80s hits like The Terminator and RoboCop, yet its tone initially feels more like Michael Crichton’s early movies – the likes of Westworld, Looker or Runaway. That’s at least until Eve 8 gets her hand on a submachine gun and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of bullets, and it all starts to look more like a Hong Kong heroic bloodshed movie.
Orion Pictures, which had previously distributed the above-mentioned Terminator and RoboCop, probably hoped Eve Of Destruction could become a sleeper hit along similar lines. Instead, it was a bit of commercial misfire in cinemas, and was fated to find a cult audience on VHS.
Admittedly, it’s all bogged down in some stale plotting and quite terrible dialogue in certain stretches, but there are moments of inspiration here and there. Eve 8’s bubble perm and red leather jacket is somehow naff and incredibly cool at the same time, and Soutendijk is really good at spraying machine gun fire with wild-eyed abandon.
There’s a tense moment involving Dr Simmons’ young son and her estranged husband that, in a less linear film, would have made a great opening scene. A set-piece in New York, involving lots of shooting, exploding cars and a grimy subway, looks raw and actually quite dangerous – if the moderately-high $13m budget was spent on anything, it was probably this. Gibbins, a British screenwriter and director, had previously directed a number of high-profile music videos (‘Club Tropicana’ by Wham was his), which might explain why Eve Of Destruction looks quite glossy in places.
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In here you’ll also find a weirdly-cast Kurt Fuller as a military chap, while Kevin McCarthy – of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers fame – shows up for an utterly thankless uncredited cameo. Meanwhile, Hines, who’s far too good for all this nonsense, constantly questions the film’s own logic.
“You’re saying this device of yours acted out one of your teenage sex fantasies?,” he demands of Dr Simmons. “This device as yours is horny as well as psychopathic? That’s quite a combination.”
Indeed it is, Gregory. Indeed it is.
Eve Of Destruction is streaming now on Prime Video in the UK.
