Hardware - Special Edition [Blu-ray]

With a disappointingly, scandalously, few movies composing his filmography, Richard Stanley is still close to the top of the list when one considers greatest living cult film directors. A heroic figure, adventurer and raconteur straight out of a Jules Verne novel, he is the Orson Welles of the post-punk generation. This was his first feature film, following on from sundry music videos and a sojourn with the Mujaheddin. Check out youtube to get the tale straight from the man himself, and much more. This film is a brilliantly realised (on a low budget) post-punk science fiction movie in the dystopian/dirty future genre of The Terminator, Alien, Bladerunner, though it's irreverence marks it out as a determinedly non-studio product. A near-chamber piece, the storyline and trappings are very similar to the great 2000AD short story, 'Shock', by Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill, which is reprinted in a booklet with this release, but is not credited onscreen. I am unaware of whether the likeness was conscious or coincidental, draw your own conclusions. All the above named are more than worthy of further investigation and will amply reward your investment of time and money. The mech aesthetic was in the ascendant in the mid-eighties, and 'Hardware' does provide a new wrinkle with it's psychedelic, almost flourescent riot of colour contrasting the expected dark, oily mechanismo, a mystical undercurrent and satiric overtones. In some ways this appears to be the most successful screen translation of the 2000AD aesthetic to date. Belonging to a different, unbelievably less media saturated time, the last great pre-Tarantino 'cult' movie, with a genuinely untameable, anarchic, upstart rock n roll attitude. Following 'Alien', Ridley Scott asserted that science fiction was the new western, and he hoped to become the John Ford of the genre. That didn't quite come to pass, but the SF film did indeed grow in prominence as the repository of our dreams and nightmares, a process arguably traceable back to '2001' and it's satiric response 'Dark Star', through Jodorowsky's unfilmed 'Dune' and it's shockwaves, through to the blockbusters of 'Total Recall' and 'Terminator 2', arguably peaking with the Phil Dick inspired 'The Matrix'. Throw in some Cronenberg mutations and distortions of reality along the way and what you have is a visionary canon of cinema that examines our place in the universe, our capacity for destruction or creation, our very perception of reality. Now the superhero movie has overtaken sci-fi as the go to genre for mythological imaginings, one that places the idealised strong, healthy, invincible body front and centre in an eternal 'present day', wherein all problems can be overcome in the arena of hand to hand combat, injury can be endured without pain, and with a side order of spectacular mass destruction. Basically, if you like badass-psycho-robot movies, this one is for you!

This is easily the most expensive blu Ray I own, and I am glad I own it. It's a very rare film to find nowadays.

Hardware (1990) remains a little known gem in the desert sand and this is director Richard Stanley's masterpiece. It's cinema's loss that he hasn't made another full length film or attempted to since his beloved update of H.G. Wells' The Island Of Doctor Moreau was aborted and turned into an unrecognizable fiasco by John Frankenheimer and Val Kilmer...I must have seen Hardware (1990) at least a couple of dozen times and it's always beautifully riveting. The perennially youthful (he almost hasn't aged a day!) Dylan McDermott is wonderful as the world-weary Moe, charismatic, damaged and lonely. Mal's death scene is hauntingly beautiful. Stacey Travis as Jill shows tremendous heart, piercing complexity, toughness and intelligence, becoming a fully fledged cinematic heroine who finally defeats the self-aware Heidiger fractal consciousness of the Mark 13 cyborg. William Hootkins' sleazy neighbour, Lincoln also shows humanity. John Lynch is also wonderful as Shades. Composer Simon Boswell's music is one of the best ever film scores, haunting, guitar strings reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores. In this (2009) uncut Optimum release, you get a superb DVD transfer, commentary and the etheral and erotic Sea of Perdition short movie -more, please <3. Beautiful visuals throughout, a masterpiece. " It flies now.."

One of those films I was beginning to despair of ever appearing in the DVD format Hardware was originally released in 1990 and is a stylish sci-fi/horror film with an interesting back story .The film is based on a "2000 AD "comic story called "SHOK! Walter's Robo-Tale."The original theatrical release did not mention the comic book despite heavily plagiarizing its storyline. Following legal action a caveat was added to later versions and the strip's creators, Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill, now get full writers' credit along with the original writer and director Richard Stanley.Stanley himself has a fascinating history going on to make the flawed dust Devil before being fired as the director of the remake of The Island Of Dr Moreau [DVD] [1996] which given that it turned out to be a Harryhausen sized turkey may not have been a bad thing. However his behaviour post sacking ( sneaking back onto the set in a Dogman mask and trying to sabotage it ) seems to have stymied his directorial career ( In the mid-90s his adaptation of Robert E. Howard's "The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane" was optioned by Ed Pressman who wanted to set it up with Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead role. The whole thing was effectively terminated by the Moreau debacle.)A great pity as Hardware made on a tiny budget( $1.5 million ) is a terrific little film with a great central idea. Given the memorable tagline that "In the 21st century there will be a new endangered species...man." the plot has Nomad ( played by Carl from the band Fields Of The Nephilim ) discovering a robot head in the radioactive desert .He sells it on to scrap merchant Alvy (Mark Northover ) and it catches the eye of soldier Moses ( Dylan McDermott ) who gives it as a present to his girlfriend Jill ( Stacey Travis) who uses it for her metal art project .But Alvy discovers that the robot heads comes from a prototype military droid called the Mk 13( Its name is a reference to the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Bible, part of which reads "no flesh shall be spared") and is able to reconstruct itself from any bits of machinery or bits of scrap and will then become a lethal killing machine ..literally.So before you can shout Robot wars the Mk13 is activated and re-building itself with rather worrying haste and Jill is trapped in the apartment with it though she is also under voyeuristic observation by her sexually perverse neighbour Vernon (Paul McKenzie in a notably repellent cameo) who maybe can offer her a life line .The film is very effectively rendered building the tension nicely until the action kicks in .Stanley makes proficient use of light and sound and the special effects( by Image Animation who also worked on Hellraiser [1987] [DVD] and Highlander [DVD] [1986] ) are more than sufficient .The acting is variable but good enough and there are notable cameo's for Iggy Pop( pretty good he is too ) as shock D.J. Angry Bob-"Nature never colours like this " referring to nuclear fallout - and Lemmy( rubbish ) as a water taxi driver .It's good to know the DVD will have plenty of extras with a commentary from Stanley , deleted scenes and a documentary "Voices Of The Moon " ( a 1990 documentary made by Stanley on the Russian invasion of Afghanistan ) and even conceptual insert cards.The films assertion that the machines we build may ultimately be the death of us is hardly original but the narratives final revelation that the Mk13 is due for mass production is just the sort of thing that probably would happen .As long as human beings want to kill each other for whatever reason homicidal droids are on the agenda. As one of the characters says "Machines don't understand sacrifice - neither do morons."