10 Sci-Fi Rip-Off Movies (That Messed Up What They Copied)

10. Lady Terminator

Of the many rip-offs of James Cameron's The Terminator curled out during the 1980s, surely the most infamous of the lot is 1988's Lady Terminator. If the title might suggest that the film is nothing more than a gender-swapped riff on Cameron's film, that's not quite fair - for better or worse.

Indeed, Lady Terminator's setup is basically totally different, revolving around a young anthropologist, Tania (Barbara Anne Constable), who gets possessed by the soul of an ancient sex goddess (!), and then embarks on a murderous rampage across town. Yup.

It's only after Tania's transformation that Lady Terminator becomes a recognisable Terminator rip-off, with Tania rocking a leather ensemble and a giant gun as she chases down the great granddaughter of the man responsible for defeating her previously.

From here, countless key sequences from Cameron's film are listlessly aped, including the nightclub shootout, car chase, police station massacre, and most bafflingly even the eye-removal scene (even though the Lady Terminator isn't a cyborg).

It's not simply that Lady Terminator lacks the technical finesse of even early-era James Cameron, but that the film tries to have its cake and eat it too, ripping off The Terminator albeit with some highly deranged, original affectations of its own.

On one hand it's laudable to not rely entirely on Cameron's film, but on the other, if you're going to rip-off something as beloved as The Terminator, why not commit wholeheartedly to it? Instead, the end result likely satisfies only the most die-hard bad movie aficionados.