Things were not going well for James Cameron in the spring of 1982. He was just five days into what was supposed to be his debut as a director, the low-budget horror sequel Piranha II: The Spawning, and the project had already gone sour.

Producer Ovidio Assonitis had no intention of letting Cameron make the film his own way (Assonitis had a track record of firing directors and taking over projects himself), and before long the director found himself stuck in Rome, jobless, and struck down with a fever. It was then that Cameron had the nightmare which would change the course of his career.

He dreamt of a horrifying metal being, clawing its way towards him out of a sheet of fire, clutching a pair of kitchen knives. It was the seed that would eventually become The Terminator – a low-budget hit which launched the career of both Cameron and title star Arnold Schwarzenegger, and marked the beginning of a franchise that is still going 30 years later.

Although primarily a sci-fi action film, The Terminator is shot through with a wide streak of horror. Every frame of Cameron’s movie, it seems, is haunted by the dream which spawned it.