31 Days of Horror: "Hardware"

by Sean McTiernan

Hardware is a movie about a cyborg that hunts a woman relentlessly, murdering everyone who gets in its way. It had the misfortune to be released as the hype was building for the return of the robotic Austrian weightlifter who redefined emptiness of expression and creativity in parking. This inadvertently invited inevitable, illogical comparisons and doomed it to obscurity along with the rest of the rubbish killer robot knockoffs released off the back of the Terminator hype. This is a shame, because Hardware is probably the best sci-fi slasher movie ever made. And sure, its competition is basically the psychedelic Jason X and probably some “Doctor Who” episodes, but that’s still an achievement worth honoring, right?

Hardware is set in a future where, among other things, pollution and overpopulation have divided the world into two wastelands: the tense labyrinth of the corroding city, where most of the action takes place, and the radiated desert of The Zone. The movie follows the progress of a robot head, discovered by a scavenger and sold to Moses (a character, not the Bible dude). Moses then gives this head to his girlfriend (steady!) so she can incorporate it into a twisted metal art installation. Sadly yes, the future will have hipsters. Unfortunately for all humans involved, the head is part of a robot designed for population control. A robot that can reassemble itself. As you can probably expect: death and mayhem ensues.

Inevitably, the film suffers from the Johnny Mnemonic Syndrome that infects all cyberpunk movies. Thankfully, it falls on the practical, “Max Headroom”/Road Warrior side of scavenging/repurposing, as opposed to the hey-we-put-gears-on-our-glasses-for-no-reason style pointless bullshit of something like Tank Girl. Your tolerance for these cyberpunk affectations will depend on your tolerance for 80s goth. If you think Gwar miming along to a Ministry song (this is not a flowery exaggeration, this actually happens) is okay then you’ll probably be fine with the rest of the movie.

The film also features several cameos from musicians who run the gamut of 80s alternative credibility. They range from the sublime (Lemmy blasting “Ace Of Spades” from his water taxi) through the awkward (Iggy Pop as mean-spirited shock jock Angry Bob) to the no-longer-so-impressive (Carl Mc Coy from Fields of Nephilim plays the scavenger who finds the M.A.R.K 13 head). Like many sci-fi movies, its idea of what the future involves actually makes it a compelling capsule of what was going on at the time.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is very much a horror movie. The best thing about horror, of which a lot of horror movies are seemingly unaware, is that you can set it anywhere and it’ll still be a horror movie. That’s what The Thing and Alien get so right, and while Hardware isn’t quite on that level (The Thing being a perfect movie, so hard to equal) it is still a success. It gets all the slasher elements spot on. It has a plucky heroine who steps up when all the Man Plans made by the men fall through. It has the unstoppable monster. It has the intense disgust and fear of sex. It has the characters who turn up to get murdered. It has the useless friend with a ridiculous name (Shades) who is as ineffectual as possible. It even has the classic slasher padding of a fat odious man who slobs around the movie filling time and may as well have a sign that says “murder bait” around his neck. It’s actually a fantastic horror movie that clips along at a ferocious pace.

Aside from the obvious Blade Runner touchstones, the movie is heavily influenced by horror cinema. The garish red hue that infects The Zone is a very Giallo-style touch, as is the scene where Moses stops to hallucinate and self-harm while the camera goes Drunken Master. The relentless, kill-anything-it-doesn’t-matter-who-dies approach of the second half is pretty reminiscent of Lucio Fulci’s House by The Cemetery. There’s even a bizarre nod to Psycho near the end (in the only scene with vaguely natural lighting which, if it’s intentional, deserves much nodding, knowing laughs and golf claps).

Hardware’s great triumph is the reason it got sued. It is the only movie so far to really capture the same mood as the grimy futuristic worlds in which many of the stories in anthology comic 2000AD were set. The most famous ongoing 2000AD character is Judge Dredd, whose own movie adaptation is so damaging to his legacy he may has well have produced a Dredd-it card and attempted to use it to buy a date with Judge Anderson. Having wasted a large part of my youth reading 2000AD (ABC Warriors, Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dog were my favorites) I have a great appreciation for how well the makers of Hardware caught its dirty, curiously English idea of what the future would hold. Sadly, they copied a bit too closely. Although director Richard Stanley has protested for years that it was just a case of “shared influences”, the plot of the film is indeed identical to a short story published first in 2000AD. They were sued, and forced to add the comic creators’ names to the credits.

Stanley, who was 23 at the time, is an intriguing figure. In order to direct the movie he had to be extracted from the guerrilla Muslim faction he had been fighting with in Afghanistan. He was in his early twenties. He freely admits to underpaying the extremely young people he had working on the special effects, something of a clue to how this movie was made for well under a million pounds at the time. To be fair to him, this doesn’t seem to be a deliberately exploitative movie, merely an indicator of gung ho bravado. Not everyone would trust kids to do their special effects on “school computers.” Still, the experience doesn’t seem to have hurt. In an interview, Stanley mentioned that Chris Cunnigham, revered creator of terrifying music videos for Aphex Twin and Bjork among others, celebrated his 16th birthday on set. That’s a pretty impressive pedigree.

Stanley’s career was roadblocked by his involvement with the disastrous Island of Dr Moreau. Hardware is one of the two classics (look for other here next week) that he has been able to make. His odd, claustrophobic (and occasionally eerily accurate) portrayal of a future in decay is a perfect place to set the story of an unrelenting robotic killler. Sure, it’s not quite as horrific as the last ten minutes of Short Circuit 2 but really… what is? Hardware is a classly piece of work that you should watch before it actually comes true.

Sean Mc Tiernan has a blog and a twitter. So does everyone, though. He also has a podcast on which he has a nervous breakdown once an episode, minimum. You should totally email him with your questions / insults/ offers of tax-free monetary gifts.