Hardware

Name: Hardware
Released: 1990
Duration: 94 min

10/100Festive FactorWhy it scores 10 ↓

UK certificate 1894 min
Horror

A Christmas film only on the calendar.

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Explore this film 4 sections

The CineClaus Christmas score

Festive Factor

A different kind of Christmas.

Two paper elves inspect a miniature artist’s studio filled with scrap sculptures, a workbench and a branch of fairy lights. — A little magic in the making.

Five ingredients make the Festive Factor.
Open an ingredient to find out more.

Christmas in the storySet dressing.5/30

What we ask: Take Christmas out. Does the plot survive? Worth up to 30 of the 100 points.

A world dressed for ChristmasVisibly Christmas for a scene or two.0/20

What we ask: How much of the running time is visibly Christmas? Worth up to 20 of the 100 points.

The little seasonal details1 of the 10 kinds of Christmas icon we count turn up on screen.2/15

What we ask: How many kinds of Christmas icon turn up on screen: trees, lights, snow, carols and the rest? Worth up to 15 of the 100 points.

A Christmas heartHow far the ending rests on goodwill, family and belief: not at all.0/20

What we ask: Does the ending depend on what Christmas means: goodwill, family, redemption, belief? Worth up to 20 of the 100 points.

A returning traditionNiche at Christmas (under 25,000).3/15

What we ask: Is it actually watched at Christmas in the UK? Worth up to 15 of the 100 points.

12/100

Cosiness Rating Rating

Chilly in tone. Genuinely frightening. An unsettled ending.

How we score →

What do these scores mean?

Festive Factor measures how Christmassy a film is. Five ingredients add up to 100: story (30), setting (20), seasonal details (15), emotional heart (20) and returning tradition (15).

Cosiness is a separate score for warmth of tone, sense of safety, visual comfort, a reassuring ending and how easily you can settle into it.

How the Festive Factor works →

The story

About Hardware

In a scorched, overcrowded future city it is Christmas Eve and blisteringly hot. A soldier home from the wastelands brings his sculptor girlfriend Jill a battered robot head he bought from a desert scavenger, as a Christmas present for her scrap-metal art. Jill works it into a sculpture, but the head is part of a military killing machine that can repair itself, and through the night it rebuilds a body from the junk in her flat and turns on anyone inside. Sealed in with it as Christmas Eve turns into Christmas morning, Jill has to fight back on her own. Richard Stanley's feature debut, made in Britain.

The CineClaus verdict

A Christmas film only on the calendar.

It is Christmas Eve, the city is baking, and the present under the arm is a robot head that should have stayed in the desert. What follows is a siege in one red-lit flat, loud with industrial rock and properly nasty with it.

Richard Stanley made it at 23 on a shoestring and it still looks expensive. There is no tree, no snow and no goodwill, just a woman fighting a machine until morning.

The family desk