Hardware (1990)

I remember first seeing Hardware late on night on cinemax and thinking it was gonna be some really lousy mess. Well that was probably about 6 years ago and still today it's one of my fave movies. Granted it's cheesy at times but it's also pretty intense and very artsy. Richard Stanley will always be one of my favorite directors just because of this movie, from what I've heard he was a music video director before this movie which explains why it's so cool looking (regardless of what some say I love when music video directors get a chance to direct movies). The acting ranges from good to o.k. (William Hootkins who played in the similar Death Machine goes from being the nastiest talking pervert to singing a really goofy song...which is the movies lowest point). The movie was very low budget but looks awesome, the production design is very good as are the effects. It looks like Blade Runner or maybe The Crow with a red/orange filter used to film every scene which gives it a gritty, bleak feel. The cyborg effects are pretty good also, it's filmed in a way that is similar to Alien, quick cuts and covered in darkness which can make the effects look better but also make the cyborg more menacing. And if you're looking for gore u found it here. I had a field day with all the blood effects...people get cut in half, eyes get squished, people are drilled, and there's a really trippy death scene at the end which is gory and poetic at the same time...oh and the cyborg goes to town on one guy's dead body with a chainsaw appendage that it has. Some reviews bitched about style over substance and lack of substance but Hardware is what it is....a really good horror/sci-fi movie. I read an interview in fangoria with Richard Stanley a few years back when he was unfairly fired from Island of Dr. Moreau and he said he was gonna have to do whatever he could to make a name for himself again after that incident and if all's true he did some kids movies last year and all but now he's supposed to come back with a sci-fi movie called A Season Of Soft Rains...hopefully more people will see what a truly gifted and talented director he really is. Now only if we can get an uncut version of Hardware on DVD.

Fmovies: I read that many people around hate this (to me fantastic) movie: of course, I pass on those who say this sucks because of the gore and violence (it's rated R - and originally even X- : what you think you're going to see, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS?). I think this movie is a little masterpiece: Stanley later will reach the excellence with DUST DEVIL, but this low-budget sci-fihorror flick can show his great skills too. Also, there are a lot of little good ideas (for example the tripping toxin or the peeping fat neighbour) that makes it original.

The story is very simple, as it should be for a movie of this kind: the first half of it is really focused in the description of a messed-up future and while it continues we're introduced to the main characters and how they relate with each other and the new environment.

Then comes the second part and the action begins: you know who is Jill, you were informed about the droid...what else do you want? This is a (great) B-Movie, not ANNA KARENINA. Of course, there are a lot of clichés (Stanley himself calls it a "design movie", written after he got a lot of projects rejected) taken from many other horror and sci-fi flicks - such as SUSPIRIA, THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, PSYCHO, PREDATOR, HALLOWEEN and so on -, but they're quiet smartly used: all the world loves Tarantino referential- movies (as I do), says that SCREAM was genius (as I don't) but at the end of the day they don't see the same in movies like this.

Another pointed- at flaw are the Special Effects: first, I'd like to say that I love the design of the droid, since it's quiet far from all those Terminator or Robocop-like cyborgs that were filling b-movies at that time. Of course, because it was basically a guy in a suit, it wasn't showed clearly (Stanley scores again: somebody else wouldn't care of the limits of it and show it with less touch - just think about WATCHERS 2!) - but you can't say it isn't menacing or scary. Also, it was shot between 1989 and 1990 (TERMINATOR 2 and it's CG were far away): the only other way to get the droid moving would had been the stop-motion animation (which is btw used a little bit in the rebuilding sequence). Yes, if you watch carefully in the letter boxed video edition, you would see the legs of the stunt guy coming out of the suit: pretty embarrassing, but isn't something you can blame Stanley for (the same happens, for example, in the video edition of PREDATOR - and disappears in the DVD widescreen version-: you can see Carl Weather's real arm behind his back when the creature is supposed to blow it off and the diving-board when the monster lifts him). I don't remember any movie from that period where a creature or similar is widely and clearly showed. Oh, yes: I'm not talking about STAR WARS or similar movies with colossal budgets.

The tight editing is another smart trick: it covers most of the flaws of the special effects and locations, but also it generates a very claustrophobic atmosphere that helps the suspense.

The cinematography is great - it can remember a video clip but I don't care: besides, nowadays many movies have a video clip or spot-oriented photography, with lower results (at least to me: I don't like, for example, the one in the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD by Snyder).

As for the soundtrack, I love Lydon's THE ORDER OF DEATH and the score by Simon Boswell (who also worked on DUST DEVIL and many Italian horror movies) - also the idea of pu

Those judging Hardware using the same criteria for judging major Hollywood sci-fi films are missing the point entirely.

Hardware is much more an art film than it is science fiction; it merely happens to have a sci-fi theme.

Given, the plot is a little cheesy. Given, the situation fairly unbelievable. And given, there are a few holes in the story.

Almost no film has all of these elements, but Hardware has something even more important. The way the story is told is nothing short of genius. Perhaps not in the way the happenings actually unfold, but in how they are presented. Hardware is an astounding achievement in lighting, cinematography, and audio engineering. As a professional video editor myself, I can assure you that this movie benefits from an A+ editing job.

I completely agree that there are only 2 types of people: those who love Hardware, and those who simply do not get it.

From the first frame of video, this movie is a constant barrage on the eyes, ears, and mind. If nothing else, you must admire the bleak vision of a post-nuclear holocaust America presented in Hardware. Images ranging from billowing smoke stacks and butchers in apartment lobbies to toddlers physically tied to their dead parents, Stanley paints a haunting vision of the future that will not be forgotten after you press stop.

Hardware is not what you would expect to come out of Hollywood. It is what you would expect a pure artist to create. Perhaps it is better suited to fans of independent film than just sci-fi fans. Films like Terminator and Aliens might be regarded as much better sci-fi work, but I assure you that they can't touch the riskiness and edginess of Hardware in how they are presented. That is why you hear casual moviegoers complaining about this movie. For pure fans of the art behind film making, sci-fi just doesn't get any better than Hardware.

It should be noted that the excellent score does much to augment the visuals in this film. It's criminal that nobody has seen it necessary to print Hardware on DVD as I would love to experience it in Dolby 5.1.

As a final note, Hardware may not be a film everyone will enjoy. Even if you don't like it, you will become a more enlightened viewer if you can at least identify why this is such a courageous film and how it differs from the Hollywood fodder you are probably used to.

Hardware fmovies. The 21st century world is a radioactive wasteland as a result of a nuclear war. A traveling scavenger comes across the remains of a cyborg named Mark 13 in the desert; He salvages pieces of it. The cyborg head ends up with a metal sculptress, who is unaware of the cyborg's infamy as a governmental killing machine project that was scrapped due to its defects. Mark 13 reconstructs itself utilizing household appliances and metal parts, and goes amok.

Hardware is a movie that relies on its post-modernistic stylings to bring out its flavor but most of the time it falls flat. It's full of oddly placed music, I heard somewhere that the director Richard Stanley used to direct music videos, so maybe that explains a few reasons as to why this movie is the way it is. The red filter used through at least 50% of the movie can become highly annoying and get in the way of viewing some potentially good, violent scenes. Also the scenes which slowly push the plots progression could have done without the distraction.

Luckily enough, when the movie really gets going (it takes almost an hour!) its quite a fun ride of just extremely painful death scenes as the clunky robot Mark-13 chases down all humans in his way.

First off, let's get my bias out the way, I'm a die-hard fan of this movie, and this review is definitely intended to get the reader to give it a chance.

The film is riddled with industrial (music) culture references and cameos, and if you're into that scene, there's a certain sick thrill about seeing Carl McCoy as the zone trooper, and seeing footage of proto-industrial performance artist Monte Cazazza in this. The general tone and ambiance of the whole piece of wonderfully clichéd cyberpunk.

And that's really the interesting thing about this film. While there are a plethora of terrible sci-fi slasher flicks out there desperately claiming the 'cyberpunk' moniker, here is a film that claims to be nothing more than a sci-fi slasher flick, and manages to be somewhat of a pulp-cyberpunk classic instead.

The whole movie is a mood piece, designed more for its ambiance and the feel of its world, than particularly flashy action sequences or on-screen 'wow' factor. It's meant to be a genre movie, but it manages to feel like a 'serious' film under the influence of some heavy drugs. Not a bad thing really, but your tastes may disagree. Personally I've always liked that sunset-filtered-through pollution look that Bladerunner was infamous for, and hardware utilizes the same rather well.

Genre movie it may be, but it shows far less cheese coating and terrible acting than any of the current glut of genre movies being produced for the Sci-Fi channel. In fact the whole movie feels more like a good pulpy cyberpunk novella than a genre movie by far. Calling the movie 'mood music for rivetheads' isn't really an insult to it.

This movie is one of the best looks at a bleak future that I've seen. It's effective in every way, except one. I've never been a big fan of self-regeneration, and it seems like a less-than-subtle way to bring our "killer robot" into play. If you look past that, and write it off as Richard Stanley's only conceivable way to bring the robot into existence, you have a masterpiece of modern sci-fi. From the sick, obsessive neighbor, to the radio-active environment, to the incredible pieces of "cyber-punk" music (PIL, Ministry), to the casual look at substance abuse,...this movie will leave you dreading what the future might hold for the computer obsessed masses. It's not a movie about a killer robot, it's a movie about the future that we are making for ourselves.