Review of Hardware (1990) by Adam B — 28 Jun 2007

Director Richard Stanley is a neglected genius. With his microscopically bedgetted debut, Hardware, he created a real, breathing, frightening and engaging future world that is hot, dusty, smelly and dangerous. But don?t worry, folks, ?cos they legalized dope.

Performances are top notch from a host of similarly neglected actors such as Dylan McDermott, John Lynch and the woman (?), although the prize for audience?s favourite must be fat-masturbator-across-the-street-who-knows-a-little-too-much-about-security-systems who sings that great song in the middle.

That star of the show, however, is Mark 13 the killer robot who assembles itself from junk in the heroine?s living room and, bereft of it?s usual military hardware, arms itself with a variety of drills and saws, although it also has a store of cell destroying toxin that is the inspiration for the most outstanding death sequence in 90s cinema.

The little touches to Stanley?s film betray his origins and hints at his next film (Dust Devil) as he casually suggests that there may be a spiritual side to the technological shenanigans. Or maybe he?s just taken a tab too many of LSD (it?s in my heart, it feels like an alligator).

Hardware is genius. Likened to being directed by Sam Raimi?s head on Dario Argento?s body (or was it the other way around) it is an energetic, utterly compelling, cool-as-a-mother-fuck, sci-fi, splatter, horror, dystopian classic. And all of this is to say nothing of the killer soundtrack (which introduced an audience to the likes of Ministry) and spot on cameos from the likes of Lemmy and Iggy Pop ? in fact, this assures us that Stanley is one of us, anyone who loves music this much as us must be on the level.