Coroner’s Report: Hardware Blu-ray

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 23, 2009

Now on DVD and Blu-ray comes the “Terminator for the 90s,” the cult classic film Hardware. A mix of science fiction and horror, the film takes place in a Post-apocalyptic world that has seen nuclear devastation turn much of it into a radioactive wasteland.  Scavengers hunt through cities and deserts, searching for scrap metal and other things to sell off.  In the midst of this, traveling soldier Moses Baxter comes across a fellow scavenger who has found bits of a strange robot, pieces that he purchases for his artist girlfriend to use in a sculpture.  What he doesn’t know, however, is that these pieces belong to a killer military robot, the MARK 13, a spider-like killer filled to the gyroscopes with ways to kill you.  Soon, the robot reactivates itself and beings repairs, arming itself with a drill, a saw blade, and reactivating its poison filled hypodermic fangs.  Obviously once this happens, the MARK 13 decides it’s time to do what it does best – kill everyone.

Kills

The film definitely starts pretty slow and only kills like one person in the first hour, but the last twenty minutes or so see the film really kick it up and violently kill at least four more people, bringing the total deaths to about 5.

Ills

One kill is off-screen, but the others are fully visible and pretty freaking sweet.  There is a gunshot to the head and an automated door cuts a guy in half, creating a blood geyser.  The robot then starts cutting up one of the dead bodies just to prove it’s a big dickhead.  The best kill, however, is when the robot uses basically every single weapon it has on one person.  First, it stabs its poison fangs into the guy (which would have been fatal), then it immediately stabs its hands into the guys eyes while simultaneously sticking a drill arm through his guts, pushing it out his back.  If that weren’t enough, the sadistic machine then starts bashing his head in.  Awesome.

Lust

We get an alright sex scene that features some boob glances, but nothing insane.  Dylan McDermott exposes his torso.  During the sex scene, and later, there is some pretty aggressive dirty talk from a pervy fat guy.

Learning

You should avoid military grade robots at all costs because even if they seem like they’re deactivated, they’re probably going to reactivate and kill you.

Review

Hardware has a problem getting started.  The movie is far too boring for far too long.  It just seems to drag.  You know there is this killer robot just waiting to kill everyone, but it’s not doing anything.  It’s just there.  In pieces.  Even after it builds itself, it takes a moment before it gets awesome.  However, once the robot does start the killing, the movie is pretty cool.  The shortcomings are probably budget related though, as indicated by director Richard Stanely on the special features.  Initially, the robot was going to be able to climb walls and be much more intimidating and agile, but there wasn’t enough money for that.  The film, made in 1990, is stuck in that time period between 80s weirdness and 90s new-wave, which means there is plenty of slow-motion, lots of crazy colors, trippy lights, and random images.  The climax almost plays out in an operatic fashion.  We also see a lot of robovision, which is kind of like the Predator infared.

I’d like to share one note, word for word from my notebook with you: Cool Robot.  When this robot wants to kill you it fucking kills you. It’s true.  The MARK 13 is awesome.  The design is pretty badass and the thing is brutal as hell.  Plus, it has some sadistic personality.  It seems to taunt victims, mess with them, plays mind games, and definitely loves killing people to all kinds of levels of dead.  Unfortunately, the movie does have about an hour of stuff to weed through before you get there, then the ending is both exciting and strange.  If you’re into post-apocalyptic horror or trippy sci-fi, this movie will probably have enough to keep you interested in it.

In the end, this is a tough call for me.  I see all the potential within it and it definitely had some great moments, but there were times when I was sitting there just wondering when it would get going.  The movie is probably worth seeing for the last 20 minutes alone, which is some Grade-A trippy robot killing rampage awesome shit.

Blu-ray

The Blu-ray is well put together with plenty of extras.  There is an audio commentary with director Richard Stanley, who has lots of interesting stuff to say.  You also get to see two Richard Stanley shorts, in addition to the early Super 8 version of of what would become Hardware. There is also a documentary on the film, deleted, extended, and behind-the-scenes footage, and a little featurette with Richard Stanely talking about Hardware 2, a movie I would love to see happen.  I’d definitely like to see either a sequel or a reboot that really focused on the robot and showed it a ton more.  There is something to this movie, even if it was pretty boring at times.

The picture looks good, though because the movie has a lot of darkness in it the high-definition shows a lot of grain in some scenes.  This is the best version of the film you’re ever going to see though, so Blu-ray is the way to go.  The audio is off the hook though, with great sound effects and a pretty rocking score.  Definitely a movie experience when you’re blasting this thing loud and there are trippy colors everywhere and the robot is all up in your face.  This is definitely a good Blu-ray release and if you’re interested in this movie, I say go for it on Blu.

On the Living Side: Definitely a really cool robot with an awesome climax.

On the Dead Side: The film takes too long to get going, though this is probably because it tries to fit a lot of stuff into a 90 minute package.  I’ve been overly hard on the film calling it boring – it is interesting what they’re trying to do, but it needed to be faster paced.

On the Other Side: The rights to the sequel are still in limbo, though Stanely says it would have focused on the role of the MARK 13, which was going to be border and city patrol.  Sweet.

Read more articles by Robert Fure