Death Machine

Got a $1 videotape of this at a thrift store because it was a video shop screener, which usually means not viewed much and still in good shape. This was, and it was a nice surprise for a dollar, and it was what "Hardware" should have been.

Without giving away too much of the story, it is about a war weapons development corporation that has a renegade inventor who builds a killer robot called the Warbeast. The renegade inventor, Brad Dourif recreating his Wise Blood character in part, is also insane and eventually the Warbeast is let loose. There's also a neat sequence where the Warbeast battles a human cyborg reminiscent of Alien 2, seems to be intentional. The Warbeast resembles a mechanical Alien, and "Scott Ridley" is a character. Many other characters named from film personalities as well.

A little sluggish at first, but really makes up for that later in the film. Also, probably not enough of the Warbeast slaughtering folks visible for some gore-hounds, but what there is, is well done. Seems like they were about two characters short to really create a good rampage by the Warbeast, but budget constraints notwithstanding, they did a very good job overall.