Hardware

Saw Hardware, a lurid 90s scifi set in some nondescript post-apocalypse. Humans have over-populated and radiation is rampant (as are goats, for some reason.) The main character is a female artist who produces creepy industrial sculptures and dates some dude who finds a nifty robot skull in the desert. But oh no! The robo-skull is part of some evil machine that can self-repair! It creepily ogles the artist and her boyfriend as they have sex (as does another, human voyeur. Like I say, this all gets pretty lurid.) There's a lot of symbolism floating around as well. The evil robot is spray-painted with stars and stripes. When it inevitably tries to kill the artist, it uses a phallic drill that, of course, is headed right between her legs.

There's some other business going on as well. The boyfriend is named Moses and reads passages from the bible. There's talk of a government sterilization program (hence the stars and stripes on the robot.) All of these provide little hints and clues toward a larger mythos but unfortunately all of this plays second fiddle to the morbid "fun" of watching this woman grapple with her big mechanical enemy. My interest in mining the ideas of this film is further dampened by the general creepiness outlined in the preceding paragraph. I feel like this would have made a pretty solid comic book. As it is, it's a bit too juvenile, self-referential, and smugly satisfied with just being gritty to interest me much. Alas, this one didn't grab me.