30 Years Later: ‘Hardware’ is Still an Unknown Gem

September 14, 2020

On September 14th, 1990, 30 years before Richard Stanley was taking on HP Lovecraft stories with Nicolas Cage, he took a tiny budget and directed a lesser-known, gritty post-apocalyptic killer robot film called Hardware. The film stars Dylan McDermott, Stacey Travis, and William Hootkins, with fun cameos from rock legends Iggy Pop and Lemmy Kilmister.

Hardware follows space marine Moses Baxter (McDermott), in a nuclear war-torn world. On Baxter’s way home for Christmas, he comes across a Nomad and purchases an old robotic head as a present for his girlfriend, Jill (Travis), to use for her artwork. Unbeknown to them, the head belongs to a Mark-13, an abandoned military battle cyborg. The head reactivates and reassembles itself with its body to unleash terror on Jill and her apartment building.

For having such a small budget (about 1.5 million), it’s obvious that Stanley sacrificed any kind of real star power for effects, and with a film like this, that was totally the right call. He needed actors for a cheesy murder robot movie, and all of them were up to the task. McDermott played a competent future badass, and Stacy Travis was surprisingly fantastic as the film’s scream queen. The film’s acting award must go to William Hootkins, though, who most of you would recognize as Porkins from Star Wars. He portrays the disgustingly perverted creep neighbor of Jill, and makes you hate his guts from the first minute he’s on screen.

The most important thing here was making the robot look imposing and sinister, and the film is extremely effective at that. Glaring red eyes, buzz saws, drills, and poison-injecting needles, this bot has all the necessary mods to make murder easy. These effects are completely practical, using animatronics and technicians in actual droid suit to make it look as realistic as possible.

In fact, all the effects look great. Stacey Travis does most of her own stunts, so action scenes involving explosions, breaking through windows, and robot battling have minimal cuts, once again making them feel legit. In a particularly gory scene, the robot sticks its dagger-like fingers into someone’s eyes, and drills through their stomach, throwing blood and viscera everywhere. Somehow, scenes like this were less gory than intended, as budget limitations stopped them from going even harder. There are a lot of cheesy 1990 computer and technology effects, too, which add to the cyber-punk aesthetic of film, including Dylan McDermott looking like he’s wearing a Nintendo Power Glove through the whole thing.

The film is based on a short story (SHOK) from a British magazine, so the pacing is quick and painless. The film flies by, getting straight to the point, and gives us a great conclusive ending. Plus, the soundtrack rocks, with a futuristic synth score from Simon Boswell (Demons 2, Stage Fright) with peppered in songs from Motorhead, Iggy Pop, and Ministry.

For the geekiest of us, there’s a great segment of The Office that references the film. One of the characters wants to watch WALL-E for their date night, and her creepy boyfriend compromises by suggesting they watch Hardware, as it too involves a robot. Great date night flick!

If you haven’t seen Hardware, I recommend giving it a watch. Even 30 years later, it belongs in the ranks with some of the better sci-fi/horror films out there. It’s a simple futuristic slasher film, perfect for fans of both genres.