Additional Posters Part 2:

Funny enough, I had this on my personal Halloween watchlist and checked it out a couple weeks ago. I actually didn't love it, but I saw quite a few reviews praising it. I definitely think it's got an impressively bleak design and vibe. Similar in a lot of ways to Alien 3

I've always found the hint of supernatural shenanigans in the post apocalyptic dystopia intriguing.

I know of the cult following and can totally see why it exists. I remember seeing this movie when it first came out but never truly embracing it and this time was no different.

I gotta say that I love the look of this film and what they were able to accomplish with this appears to be a very small budget. It was a very well-realized world which reminded me of a cross between Blade Runner and Terminator but with a creepy ass robot akin to Saturn 3.

But at only 93 minutes, this movie still seemed long. There were several times it could have ended and properly but just kept going to the movie's detriment. The cool effects, solid production, kick-ass soundtrack and good acting can't save the paper-thin plot. And stretching it past its limits just eventually hurts the entire movie.

There was just missing something that I couldn't put my finger on to make me fully like or enjoy Hardware. A movie like this is usually something I am into, but I just got too bored with the one note story, and nothing kept my head locked into it.

My rating: **1/2 out of *****

Edited to add a thank you to alyxstarr for the link!

Red hued dystopian radio picture show. Not only, this film is aggressively dystopian littered with garbage yard rubble and refinery montages - shot with a warmed that would read hot on a giger counter. A stylized comment on the double edged sword of fetishizing technology (or perhaps worldly possession rather than those of intellect/spirit like it's bible reading hero; but it's not preachy and just as likely here to buzzsaw for the cool fun of it). I think atmospherically rich films like Hardware have ruined less committed dystopian films for me. The lighting across the scenes is really rich and adds a lot of depth to the smaller apartment setting (lighting is often in motion with fire or alarms, etc); but the way it uses sound design is just as smart. It feels like a music video with nontraditional shots within a screen of different types, lingering slow shots, etc. Hardware really foreshadows it's killer but given the committed artistry it never feels slow. The characters sometimes feel a little impersonal - cool but lacking a vulnerability or humility and as hardened apocalyptic folk they might not make the best victims. Writer/director Richard Stanley feels like someone who never got his due and has been making curiously good movies for decades (most recently Color Out of Space with Nicholas Cage and similar lighting detail). I'm surprised Severin let their disc of Hardware go out of print (seems the rights around this are complicated); I have a copy I got from Hastings and that feels like a sad thing of the past. The amount of musical folk who have small roles or references here adds a lot to the atmosphere. Mark Northover, a midget actor who plays the junk dealer was also good in Willow and I'm surprised he didn't get more roles. We all walk the Wibbly-Wobbly Walk.

I’m a tad disappointed by my own pick. This has been in my watchlist for so many years, i guess i expected more. It’s very much a mishmash of The Road Warrior and the Terminator with some cyberpunk thrown in.

This one didn't do much for me either. I'm not much of a science fiction fan to begin with, so with films like this one that lean harder into the "science" (or in this film's case, the machinery) than the "fiction," I don't have much to hang on to. It's got some amazing production design going for it, however, and it looks like the set decorators had a blast filling every available space on the sets with cool-looking junk. Bonus points for the Lemmy cameo, though!

I have always liked Richard Stanley and Hardware is typical Stanley. Interesting visuals, oddball characters, a bit incoherent at times, but a fun watch.
7/10