film rating:
disc rating:
companies: British Screen Productions
year: 1990
runtime: 93′
country: United Kingdom
director: Richard Stanley
cast: Dylan McDermott, Stacey Travis,
John Lynch, William Hootkins
writers: Steve Macmanus, Kevin O’Neill,
Richard Stanley, Michael Fallon,
and Michael Apostolina
cinematographer: Steven Chivers
disc company: Severin Films
release date: October 13, 2009
retail price: $34.95
disc details: Region A / Dual Layer
feature: 1080p HD
audio: Dolby Digital English [2.0 + 5.1]
subtitles: none
reviewed from a screener provided
by Severin Films LLC.
Order this film from Amazon.com

Plot: In the future, a dismantled military robot reconstructs itself in the apartment of a metal sculptor and goes on a murderous rampage.

I’d not seen Hardware before the screener arrived on my proverbial doorstep, though I do remember seeing the unattractive video box art in my days as a video rental clerk.  It never struck me as anything terribly worth seeing, and certainly didn’t see many rentals in my year or so there.  Besides, I was too busy filling my head with things like The Deadly Spawn (titles that had captured my youthful imagination by cover alone but which I had been forbidden from viewing, and rightly so, as a child) to bother with something I’d otherwise never heard of.  It’s a pity, really, that I didn’t come around to Hardware sooner, but no matter – this stylish and undeniably weird little industrial slasher was worth the wait.

Set in the dystopian near-future, the film concerns scrounger Mo (McDermott) and his sometimes girlfriend Jill (Travis).  When the opportunity to buy something truly unique – disembodied robot parts – comes along courtesy of a mysterious stranger, Mo jumps at it, thinking the parts would make a great Christmas present for his scrap-sculpting girlfriend.  While Jill sleeps the head of the robot, belonging to a dysfunctional combat android, comes back to life and constructs a body for itself out of the odds and ends it finds around her apartment.  From there on out it’s a battle for survival, with the robot killing anyone it can get its claws (or whirring phallic drillbit) into.

Hardware presents viewers with a suitably distressing backdrop – a future in the midst of a world war where the population is placated with government-controlled media and marijuana.  Much is made of a new government mandate to cease human procreation until mutated genes (the result of heavy amounts of radiation in the atmosphere) can be culled from the exploding population, and pollution in the atmosphere casts everything in an oppressing red light.  Writer / director Richard Stanley’s vision of this future owes much to films and literature that came before – Blade Runner and Soylent Green (as well as the Harry Harrison source novel Make Room! Make Room!) are the more obvious inspirations.

Onto this backdrop are tossed a host of odd individuals, like Mo’s constantly tripping friend Shades (John Lynch) and the obese and voyeuristic pervert Lincoln (William Hootkins).  The latter positively steals the show with his few, largely improvised, scenes – he’s certainly one of the most lovable would-be sex offenders in all of filmdom.  Even minor roles here are memorable, with Lemmy (from Motorhead) playing a disgruntled taxi driver and Iggy Pop in the voice-only part of radio DJ Angry Bob.  There are more than enough people of interest to keep the fact that Hardware has so little on its mind from being too distracting.  There’s the pretense of subtext – frequent religious imagery and what have you – but little to back it up in the end.

Of course subtext isn’t what most (myself included) really want out of a film like Hardware.  We want to see the killer robot do what killer robots do, and Hardware‘s third act delivers the gory goods in spades.  William Hootkins is recipient to a particularly gruesome end, his eyes gouged out and his head smashed into the floor while the robot’s ludicrous drill-penis tears through his midsection.  The highlight has to be the death of a security guard, who is sliced neatly in half by the sliding doors of Jill’s apartment.  Stanley and cinematographer Steven Chivers really stretch their limited budget here, lingering over the fantastical violence in highly stylized slow-motion takes a la Argento or Fulci.

My only gripe is with the ’80s music video style of one scene, in which a member of the main cast (I’ll never tell who!) is under the effects of the robot’s lethal hallucinogenic venom (did I mention that it possessed lethal hallucinogenic venom?).  Some of the shots here are just too silly for me to accept, but they’re nothing I can’t live with.  I was actually impressed that such a low budget film could look so good, and Hardware‘s production design team works overtime to ensure that what is essentially a one set film never feels constrained.  The little touches – talking elevators and coffee pots and a ludicrous commercial for “radiation free reindeer steaks” – make all the difference.  The score by Simon Boswell, augmented with tracks from Public Image Ltd. and Ministry, among others, is first rate, and Boswell’s mechanically symphonic monster attack stings are not to be missed.

Severin Films has previously impressed with their excellent Blu-ray releases of the Enzo Castellari war efforts The Inglorious Bastards and Eagles Over London, but their disc of Hardware (also available on 2-disc DVD) is their best to date.  Transferred from a flawless source print in crisp 1080p, the film looks brand new.  The 1.85:1 image is damage free, outright refusing to give away its age of 20 years, with Steven Chivers’ cinematography is exceptionally served by its vivid color and sharp detail.  Even the fine grain structure of the film is healthily preserved, with no signs of undue digital manipulation or encoding shortfalls.  The bottom line is that Hardware looks stunning, and likely even better than it did when in theatrical distribution. Audio is offered in two flavors of compressed Dolby Digital, 2.0 or 5.1, with no uncompressed option available.  Both tracks are strong, but the film would have been well-served by a bump to HD.  There are no subtitles.

The supplements are more extensive than I ever could have expected, starting with an excellent commentary track with writer / director Richard Stanley and disc producer Norm Hill.  Heading up the video extras is the lengthy production documentary No Flesh Shall be Spared (53 minutes), followed by the much shorter Richard Stanley on Hardware 2 (8 minutes).  Next up are two vintage 8mm Richard Stanley films, Incidents in an Expanding Universe (44 minutes, a forerunner to Hardware) and Rites of Passage (10 minutes), and his 2006 short The Sea of Perdition (8 minutes).  A promotional video, German trailer, and reel of deleted scenes round out the video extras, all of which are presented in high definition (though several are tape-sourced).

Severin has produced one hell of a package here, with more than enough supplemental heft to impress fans and newcomers alike.  The film itself is a fun one that I’ve watched several times since receiving the screener, even going so far as to screen it for a few friends.  Whether you’re into exploitation, Richard Stanley, or just like killer robots, you really can’t go wrong with Hardware.  Highly recommended!