HARDWARE

(A.k.a. M.A.R.K. 13)

"No flesh shall be spared" Mark 13.

Welcome to a future where it never rains, radiation fills the air and the eternal red-hued darkness offers a solemn backdrop to a world of poverty, lawlessness and population control. It's a world where people only go out if they need to, otherwise locking themselves indoors to feed on a constant diet of commercial TV and the bitter "there is no fucking good news" rants of DJ Angry Bob (Iggy Pop).

In this universe, a Zone Tripper (Carl McCoy) scours a red desert for fragments of scrap. When he uncovers the head and remains of a droid, he takes them to a local scrap merchant to sell. There, fellow scavenger Mo (Dylan McDermott) buys the pieces of metal and then tries to make a profit by flogging them to the merchant, Alvy (Mark Northover).

Alvy offers a cut-rate price, so Mo parts only with the disembodied limbs and decides to give the droid head to his girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis) as a Christmas present. Jill's an artist who likes nothing better than welding pieces of scrap together to create unsettling sculptures that she can't sell.

After a depressing trawl through the nameless industrial town, including a taxi ride with cabbie Lemmy (who plays "Ace Of Spades" on the car stereo!), Mo turns up at Jill's apartment with his best pal, gobby Irishman Shades (John Lynch).

Allowing the pair into her heavily secured pad, Jill is initially cold towards Mo. He's been gone away for quite a while, after all. But once she sees the bag of scrap he's brought for her, including the droid head, she soon warms to him: "it's horrible, I love it". Sensing a make-up coming on, Shades leaves while Jill rewards Mo with sex in the shower.

The following morning Jill wakes early and begins creating a sculpture with the droid head as its centrepiece. Meanwhile, Alvy is busy in his pit researching the inanimate robot parts he's acquired from Mo. He learns that the pieces form a deadly Military robot called M.A.R.K. 13 and, with dollars in his eyes, he excitedly calls Mo, asking him to meet him with the droid head in one hour.

Mo sets off to do business with Alvy but leaves the head be, not wishing to spoil Jill's creation. However, when the head comes to life (by way of it's glowing red eyes and heat-sensitive vision), so do the pieces in Alvy's workplace. They want to be pieced together, and have the technology to seek each other out.

This spells bad news for Jill, who's been left home alone with the activated head, because unfortunately the robot is a homicidal machine with only murder on it's agenda. With Mo absent, it seems that Jill only has a voyeuristic neighbour for help. Unfortunately, even he is more intent on raping Jill than saving her ...

HARDWARE begins with a solemn, bleak tone and moves slowly through patches of largely dialogue-free darkness before stepping up a gear in the second-half for a more conventional genre-type finale.

The dual tone of the film gives it an uneven feel, despite the consistency of the stunning visuals of cinematographer Steven Chivers, production designer Joseph Bennett and art designer Max Gottlieb. The film really does belong to them.

Elsewhere, a confused narrative attempts to convolute what is essentially a very basic storyline (based on the short story "SHOK!" from the pages of 2000AD). Writer-director Richard Stanley opts for almost arthouse-style meandering in-between script references to the politics of child-bearing, world poverty, the struggle between man and machine, and much more. If you're familiar with Stanley's work (DUST DEVIL, for example), you won't be surprised to learn that themes such as the Old Testament and sexual violence are also explored - in ever-so-slightly pretentious fashion.

Performances are undeniably ropy throughout, with only Travis emerging as a convincing character. She comes to the fore in the film's latter half, and thankfully saves it from failing on a dramatic level. McDermott is all looks and muscles, his acting not extending much further from offering a smug grin now and again. Lynch is overbearing, while the risible 'acting' of Lemmy, Pop and Fields Of The Nephilim's McCoy serve as warnings to any directors looking to cast "cool" faces in their film.

Stanley's film does very much want to be accepted as "cool": the quirky casting is akin to that of Alex Cox, who of course has his own legion of fans eager to read cool into whatever he touches; the profanity-ridden script feels unnatural in it's Americanized slang, coming from Stanley's pen; entire segments of the film fall into music video chic, stopping everything to wallow in MTV-friendly colours and popular music set to slick, colourful montages (such as Ministry's "Stigmata" bizarrely playing along to a GWAR music video while Jill welds her sculpture).

What's interesting about this production though, is that Stanley also has one eye on oppressive artiness, grinding the pace just enough to concentrate on more contemplative scenes such as the sun setting on a barren horizon and the opening striking image of the nomadic Zone Tripper traversing the glowing red desert. The film is beautiful to behold on frequent occasion, and Stanley clearly has much to say about his fears of the future - in-between keeping his American financiers and audiences happy.

When the crowd-pleasing elements set in, in the film's latter half, they are staged at an extremely competent level. Derek Trigg's tight editing and Simon Boswell's elevating score help wrench up the tension during the climactic droid attacks. Choice set-piece scenes such as an attack on Jill that extends to the bathroom are minor masterpieces of editing, camerawork and lighting employed to maximum effect.

Stanley's also aided immeasurably by the grisly FX work of Shaune Harrison, whose gore effects propel the film firmly into the realms of horror. Gruesome highlights include a visceral eye-gouging and the famous moment a cop is torn in half. But the real reason for the film's certificate 18 rating is undoubtedly the vulgar language the voyeuristic neighbour directs at Jill during a pesty telephone call.

Clearly inspired by the dark, Neon-lit visuals of BLADE RUNNER and the sci-fi-thriller stomping of THE TERMINATOR (the droid is undeniably similar to the Terminator's flesh-free metal frame), HARDWARE still manages to feel unique thanks to it's odd mixture of atmosphere-heavy artiness and occasional pop video excesses. The fact that it's director's self-importance can be felt throughout, and that the film logically ends 65 minutes in and then proceeds with an additional 25 minutes of too many false endings, don't stop this from being ultimately enjoyable trash.

Sex, nudity, gore and some inspired visuals, all wrapped up in a futuristic allegory that, thanks in part to the money of Harvey and Bob Weinstein, often looks great: HARDWARE may not be the bona fide cult classic that many have claimed it to be (years in DVD limbo tends to do that to films), but it's still fun.

For those who've been longing for a Special Edition DVD of HARDWARE over the years, it has definitely been worth the wait.

The uncut anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer provided is simply fantastic. HARDWARE still looks naturally dark, but clarity of interior scenes is a revelation when you refer to the old UK videotape. Pin-sharp, smooth and making excellent use of the bold colour schemes, this is HARDWARE like you've never seen it before. There's not a blemish or speck on the screen throughout playback - a wonderful offering.

English 2.0 audio is clean and clear from beginning to end.

An animated main menu page leads to a static scene-selection menu allowing access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

Extras begin with a fluent commentary track from Stanley and co-producer Paul Trijbits. The pair are erudite and interesting to listen to. Stanley's manner is naturally pompous but in a positive light he's interesting and honest. Anecdotes are entertaining, information is enlightening and for the most part this is free from pregnant pauses (there are a few admittedly towards the end, where presumably the pair get into the onscreen action a little too much).

A sub-menu page gives access to a collection of rare footage. These consist of three extended scenes, a rough cut deleted scene and some fairly uninvolving behind-the-scenes footage. These can be viewed individually or as a 20-minute whole by selecting the "Play All" function. Each is presented in English mono, in non-anamorphic 1.85:1.

Next we get an 8-minute short film by Stanley from 2006, entitled "Sea Of Perdition". In it, Maggie Moor plays Sly Delta Honey, a cosmonaut stranded on Mars. Her narration sometimes ruins the ambience of this visually stylish meshing of slick colours and sub-2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY aspirations. Still, after an ambling start it offers a gorgeous female nude and a predictably grim climax before threatening "To Be Continued". The film is presented in sharp anamorphic 2.35:1 with English 2.0 audio.

Another sub-menu from the Extras page reveals two old Super-8mm shorts from Stanley under the banner of "Early Days".

"Rites Of Passage" is mercifully short at 9 minutes in length, while "Incidents In An Expanding Universe" is as pretentious and wannabe-intellectual as it sounds. It's all tedious, at 45 minutes long. Again, the films - littered with dodgy English narrators and stock footage of everything from real violence to wildlife photography - can be viewed individually or as a single proposition by pressing the "Play All" icon. Both films are presented in 1.33:1, in English mono.

It doesn't stop there. "Voice Of The Moon" is a 32-minute documentary filmed by Stanley for UNICEF UK in 1990. The film - an account of Russia's invasion of Afghanistan and the effects felt by the latter afterwards - has an experimental feel to it, offering many striking images but little in narrative cohesion save for the occasional witness testimonies. These are provided in their original language with burned-in English subtitles. Further bolstered by a memorable score from Simon Boswell, this is an intriguing film that is also available on Subversive Cinema's 5-disc DVD release of DUST DEVIL. Presented in its original full-frame aspect ratio.

The disc's extras are completed by an entertaining 3-and-a-half-minute promotional clip that comprises of clips from HARDWARE and archive interview footage with Stanley, McDermott and Travis.

Also included as part of the formidable package are 5 concept art cards, and a booklet containing liner notes from Kim Newman and a reproduction of the original "SHOK!" story.

HARDWARE is a film with an impeccable pedigree and lots of striking visual ideas. It also throws in enough exploitation ingredients to meet the grade as a horror-thriller. So while it's not quite the classic some people remember it to be, it is still a very worthy proposition and is served spectacularly by this great DVD.

Also available on Blu-ray.

Review by Stuart Willis