Terminal Device

A personal essay film, Terminal Device mixes autobiography, film critique, recreated scenes, and archival footage. When viewed through the oft-sinister, pop cultural lens of one-armed-man films, the director's story as a lifelong amputee gains unexpected resonance.

Whether the nefarious comic villain, Captain Hook, the relatively benign outsider, Edward Scissorhands, or the monsters in various B-grade horror films, handless characters and their scary prosthetics consistently skew the narrative. A densely entertaining, subjective work that reworks mainstream cinema images in the manner of films like Room 237, The Clock, and 24 Hour Psycho, Terminal Device theorizes, describes and shows what it is to be one of the men with hooks.