By Keri O’Shea
Post-apocalyptic or dystopian movies always seem to be balanced on a knife-edge, both telling audiences about certain anxieties that existed for the future, whilst also being very much of the time when they were made; they act as both time-capsule and time machine. In the case of Hardware, re-released here on its twenty-fifth anniversary, many of its elements are quite familiar to similar dystopian films that had preceded it: people routinely thought that, should humanity’s number be up in the foreseeable future, then it would be via global-scale warfare, technology gone rogue and/or the feckless, profit-driven corporations which were behind it all (and quelle change). Elements of these ideas are brought into play in Hardware, but they are not hugely developed; being based on a 2000 AD comic strip, its substance is more about aesthetics than content. More than that, Hardware is interesting in that it looks like a very subculture-specific take on the end of the world as we know it. It’s part movie, part Psychic TV broadcast, an atmosphere-driven film which is choc-ful of nods to the underground scene of the day, though perhaps stretched somewhat by the feature-length format.
We start at some unspecified (in the film) point in the near future: America seems to have been decimated by what could be nuclear war, as there is frequent mention made of spiralling radiation, and the drifter we first encounter wandering the arid wastes (hot, permanently-dusty musician Carl McCoy, playing Carl McCoy – whom I’m not even sure knows he was in a film) seems to make his living collecting scrap metal from the sand dunes, even though this is on the outskirts of NYC. He discovers parts of a robot, buried: the head in particular looks intact and probably worth something, so he takes it straight to a dealer named Alvy (Mark Northover) but ends up selling it to a soldier, Mo (Dyman McDermott) who happens to be passing through with a friend of his.
Mo decides to take the head to his girlfriend’s place as a Christmas gift. Jill (Stacey Travis) doesn’t seem too keen on going far from her apartment, and spends her time working on junk art – you know the stuff, melding burned baby dolls to bits of metal and such. She is happy with her gift and soon sets to work on it; too late does Alvy manage to get the message to Mo that the robot – which turns out to be an experimental MARK-13 – might not be fully deactivated after all. Soon, Jill is at grave risk from what’s inside her own apartment.
That is the plot of the film in a nutshell, for as stated above, vast storylines and developments are not the chief concerns for Hardware. The film spends as much time watching Jill spray-painting the skull (so it resembles the stars and stripes, naturally) as it really does looking into the existence or purpose of the robot itself, and although the film is doubtlessly evocative in its way, its plot-lite style felt a little wearing to this reviewer, at least when diluted across ninety minutes. However, it does have some effectively creepy scenes; the robot’s self-reassembly routine looked like Uncle Frank bursting out from beneath the attic floorboards, only comprising nuts, bolts and wires rather than flesh, blood and veins. It’s a remarkably effective piece of SFX, and the film’s moments of gore have aged rather well too, even if you have to wait for them. The biggest development here of all is really in the character of Jill, who moves from (stoned) damsel in distress, with primal scream to match, to a figure of vengeance when the robot harms or threatens to harm the few people she has in her life, and this gives the film some deserved impetus – I’m not sure I could have coped with the same game of cat and mouse all the way through.
Ultimately though, Hardware is all about the brutal aesthetics, 2000 AD through-and-through, right down to one of the extras – though we don’t see many extras – wearing a biker jacket with the Tank Girl logo painted on it. Via its soundtrack and its add-ons – flashes of Jill’s TV set always seem to be showing the type of thing you’d get appearing on the screen in a Ministry video (and oh hey – there is a Ministry video here too!) – this film is surely meant to display the rock fan’s post-apocalyptic landscape of choice. Did I also mention Lemmy pops up here briefly, as a taxi driver? And Iggy Pop has a voice cameo as radio DJ ‘Crazy Bob’? Incidentally, Bethesda Games – we definitely know where you got the idea for your radio DJ in Fallout 3, but I digress…if you have a place in your heart for the late 80s rock/industrial vibe then there’s plenty to gawp at here, and the cinematography is, in its own way, gorgeous. Ruination here looks incredibly picturesque, and the meticulously put together set pieces, with careful attention paid to how they’re lit, adds tenfold to the overall effect, as does the harsh musical score.
Yes, aside from some gripes about the flatness of plot which can feel frustrating, the film looks onerously like Terminator in places, only it all takes place more in the domestic sphere, and the religious symbolism is at times added with a trowel – though to be fair, that’s religious symbolism generally. Hardware has its issues, sure, but it’s interesting enough as an entry into the post-apocalyptic genre to merit a watch. The real shame here is that this ’25th Anniversary Edition’ is incredibly bare bones with no extra features whatsoever; it’s not even chaptered. Perhaps my review copy lacks other features which will be included on the main release, and the DVD box does promise a typotastic ‘To [sic] limited edition illustrations from World [sic] renowned comic artist Clint Langley’, though there weren’t any in mine. Hey ho.
Hardware – 25th Anniversary Edition will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on 23rd February 2015.