Hardware (film)

"No flesh shall be spared."

Hardware is a British Sci-Fi/Horror movie directed by Richard Stanley. In a post-apocalyptic desert, a wandering scavenger finds a dismembered robot buried in the sand, and takes the pieces back to the City to sell to Alvy, a scrap dealer. Also visiting the dealer are Moses "Hard Mo" Baxter and his Sidekick Shades. Mo is a (slightly) more professional scavenger; Shades...wears shades. Mo buys the most of the robot bits as a Christmas present for his girlfriend Jill who is a sculptor.

Jill lives in a tightly controlled apartment block in the dangerous inner City, and has been having trouble with a prowler, but is persuaded to let Mo in and he gives her the bag full of robot. Alvy, meanwhile, has been examining the remaining robot parts more closely and has made an alarming discovery. The robot is actually a M.A.R.K. 13 cyborg, a lethal prototype killing machine capable of rebuilding itself if damaged. He contacts Mo, and in a truly outstanding example of Plot Induced Stupidity persuades Mo to come to the scrap yard - leaving Jill at home with the M.A.R.K. 13.

The robot accordingly rebuilds itself, using household appliances and sculpting tools to replace missing parts, and runs amuck. The bits left with Alvy also come to life, and Alvy is killed by lethal injection from a disembodied crawling claw. Mo, having found Alvy dead and realised the danger, rushes back to rescue Jill. Then things get seriously weird.

Shot on a very low budget, Hardware has become a definite Cult Classic, at least in the U.K. The story was based on a short comic strip set in the Judge Dredd universe, and the setting is generally acknowledged to be a far better depiction of a Mega-City than that seen in the 1995 film.

Not to be confused with the unrelated superhero published by Milestone Comics of the same name. Or the ITV sitcom.

No examples shall be spared:

• Alien Sky
• Artificial Limbs: Subverted- Mo has an artificial hand, but no reference is made to it and it doesn't give him super strength.
• AI Is a Crapshoot
• Batter Up: Jill arms herself with a baseball bat near the end.
• Big Damn Heroes: Played straight once then subverted later
• Bullet Time
• Cassandra Truth: Lincoln is too obsessed about Jill to care about her warnings of the killer robot inside her apartment.
• Chainsaw Good: One of Mark 13's limbs has a circular saw attached to it. It also grabs an actual chainsaw by the end of the movie.
• Cool but Inefficient: The M.A.R.K. 13 can inject victims with a toxin which makes them hallucinate before dying; why this is more efficient than just killing them outright is never adequately explained.
• Crapsack World: The City is basically Mega City One but without the Judges.
• Dedication
• Destination Defenestration
• Determinator: M.A.R.K. 13
• Expospeak: Mostly averted but there are a couple of particularly jarring examples.
• Eye Scream: M.A.R.K. 13 pokes Lincoln's eyes out when it's killing him.
• Eyes of Gold: Wanderer's eyes.
• Fun with Acronyms
• Half the Man He Used To Be
• Hallucinations: Side-effect from M.A.R.K. 13's neurotoxins.
• Harassing Phone Call: Lincoln makes these to Jill.
• Helping Hands
• Impending Doom POV
• Infrared X Ray Camera
• Kill It with Fire
• Killer Robot
• Lockdown
• Losing Your Head
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: M.A.R.K. 13.
• Mutants: Averted, exposure to radiation has caused stunted growth and deformities but no cool powers.
• No Waterproofing in the Future
• Ominous Music Box Tune: Heard when Lincoln is stalking Jill with his infrared camera.
• Plot Induced Stupidity: Although Alvy's reluctance to talk over the phone is understandable he could surely have told Mo to bring Jill with him, or take her somewhere else.
• Psycho Prototype
• Population Control
• Red Eyes, Take Warning
• Scavenger World: Not quite, but it is implied to be going that way
• Screaming Woman
• Self-Constructed Being: the MARK 13.
• Shout-Out: To Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

Shades: "My heart...it feels like an alligator."

• Shower Scene
• Stalker with a Crush: Lincoln.
• Stunt Casting: Lemmy as a taxi driver, Iggy Pop as a D.J. and Carl McCoy from Fields of the Nephilim as the wanderer.
• Suck Out the Poison: Attempted.
• Sunglasses At Night: Shades never takes off his sunglasses.
• Thirteen Is Unlucky
• This Is a Drill
• Used Future
• Vertigo Effect
• Weaksauce Weakness: The M.A.R.K.13 can be disabled by water.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head
• What Could Have Been: Richard Stanley wrote a script for a sequel entitled Hardware II: Ground Zero, but it never materialized due to rights disputes.
• Window Pain
• World War III: The story either happens at the tail end of this or sometime afterward with a more minor conflict still going on.