“Hardware” is a post-apocalyptic action/thriller originally released back in 1990 and was written and directed by Richard Stanley. The movie starts with a scavenger finding the skull of a M.A.R.K. 13 cyborg killing machine out in the wastelands and bringing it back to his girlfriend who is a metal sculptor to use in her art. What neither of them know however, is that the skull is still active and has started to rebuild itself and starts to kill the people around them. The android traps the girlfriend (Stacey Travis) in her apartment while it goes on a killing spree. The movie features a hard rock soundtrack and even has appearances from rock legends Iggy Pop and Lemmy from Motorhead.

As with most horror movies, the plot of this film is pretty thin, but at least the acting is okay. The movie uses crude language in place of humor and features characters that are really not very likable. The best part of the movie is waiting to see how the rebuild killing machine is going to kill them next. Eventually they find a way to dispatch the evil robot (although not before we are first subjected to the obligatory jump scare from the not-quite-dead machine), and lessons are learned. Turns out the M.A.R.K. 13 robots were all part of a government conspiracy to stop overpopulation in the wasteland of a planet.

The film is predictable, the story is filled with cliches, and the look of the movie just does not hold up today. It’d be a good flick for an action junky, or someone who enjoys a killer robot flick. Although for a movie that came out a year before the second Terminator film, you’re probably better off watching that instead.