In this ultraviolent horror show, a nuclear holocaust has incinerated most of the world and left New York looking even grungier than usual. Jill, a sculptor played by Stacey Travis, has to check visitors to her apartment for radiation levels. Writer-director Richard Stanley and his production crew, most of them veterans of the music-video world (Stanley worked with Renegade Sound Wave and Pop Will Eat Itself), have a ball giving the picture a techno-junk look. A thrash-metal radio jock named Angry Bob, given voice by Iggy Pop, announces, "There is no fucking good news."

There's none about the movie either. The bite goes out of Stanley's script shortly after Jill's black-marketeer boyfriend Moses (Dylan McDermott) gives her a helmet that mutates into a killer cyborg. The ensuing savagery won the film an X rating until a few seconds of limb tearing were cut to win an R. But the movie isn't shocking, just numbing. Add Hardware to the scrapheap of films that sacrifice ideas for sensation.

“More Than a Feeling”

Boston mastermind Tom Scholz was as surprised by anyone when he sent his unsolicited demo to record labels and got back a positive response. Scholz said, “I couldn’t believe it. Nobody knew who we were, so I wouldn’t even say we were struggling. It was groveling.” Part of the credit for the interest must go to the anthemic rock number "More Than a Feeling." Inspired by the Left Banke's 1966 hit "Walk Away Renee," Scholz worked on the song for five years in his basement studio before it was released on this album.