Before They Were Stars: James Cameron Directs “Xenogenesis”

We all know that James Cameron’s first feature film was the infamously bad Piranha II: The Spawning. However, three years before that, Cameron put together an 11-minute sci-fi short film called Xenogenesis, which told the story of a woman and engineered man who are travelling through space and looking for a place to start a new life cycle until they realize that a gigantic robot vacuum cleaner is on their ship. You can obviously see elements of The Terminator and Aliens in this early Cameron endeavour and the lead actor also happens to be William Wisher, Jr., who would go on to co-write Terminator 2: Judgment Day with the director.