DEATH MACHINE (1994)
Written & Directed by Steven Norrington
High Octane 90s Techno-nightmare
Death Machine is an entertaining nugget of sci-fi horror gold, flying in from way out left-field. Equal parts Robocop, Alien, Hardware, and its own original concepts, this film may not be the freshest offering, but it sure as hell is entertaining.
It has a psychotic military robot built to resemble a demonic, stainless steel T-Rex; it has Brad Dourif channeling a cross between both his Wormtongue and his Chucky characters; it has first-person video-game style action (way before that became a thing); it has interesting and progressive gender representation… and it has gore.
The CHAANK corporation (“Hard Technology for a Hard World”) has just appointed Hayden Cale (Ely Pouget) as CEO after the suspicious death of her predecessor, who apparently died in a great white shark attack… in his high rise office. Cale is stuck with the job of defending CHAANK against allegations of mass murder of children and unarmed civilians. Her investigation brings her close to the lunatic, sexually obsessed engineering genius Jack Dante (Dourif), lead scientist on Project Hardman: cybernetic tech designed for military use.
Dante uses CHAANK’s extensive resources to secretly build his own pet project, the Warbeast, aka the Frontline Morale Destroyer (that name!). Enter the demonic looking, stainless steel T-Rex, which also happens to be the so-called ‘great white shark’ that killed the former CEO. The monster FX crew obviously took the phrase “frontline morale destroyer” very seriously as a design brief because Warbeast is legit terrifying. Think a robot version of the Alien Queen (Aliens).
Dante, on the verge of being fired for insubordination, releases Warbeast on the board and chief execs. Throw in a squad of insanely OTT humanist anti-corporate terrorists/freedom fighters, a convincingly Ripley-esque female protagonist (Pouget), and lashings of retro video game graphics, and Death Machine becomes a rip-roaring battle for survival, set in a corporate high-rise battleground.
This film is acts as kind of self-aware conduit to the sub-genre of sci-fi horror, with characters named Carpenter, Yutani, Raimi, and Ridley. Even the corporation’s name, CHAANK (apparently not an acronym), is the sound the Warbeast makes as it snaps its massive steel jaws open and shut (“Chaank!! Chaank!! Chaank!!”) on approach to its victims.
Although, I might have praised it too quickly for being self-aware: at one point in the film one of the humanist terrorists gives himself a ripper wedgie (look that one up — sometimes known as a “cosmic” wedgie) to make a bandage for a fresh wound on his leg. Forget the bizarre choice to self-wedgie; what’s up with using dirty underwear as a bandage for an open wound? That’s just insane, right? I learned about field dressing back when I was an army cadet and rubbing feces and urine into open wounds is not recommended.
Death Machine swings like a pendulum from silly to terrifying throughout the entire two hours run time, and ensures that a sympathetic audience will neither become bored, nor leave the experience dissatisfied.
Representation
So let’s just get the cultural representation component out of the way: everyone in this movie is white. And I do mean everyone; 100% coverage from principles to extras. It’s culturally homogeneous to the point of being weird (there’s even a large crowd scene at the start, for Christ’s sake… not a person of colour to be seen), but there is more to this movie than initially meets the eye.
Unlikely as it may seem, Death Machine manages to knock a couple of chips out the glass ceiling. Our protagonist, chief executive Hayden Cale, is a no-nonsense, hard as nails corporate ninja. It will be clear to feminists of our current era that she has been cast as a stereotypical ‘ball-buster’, but let us not forget that this was 1994… anyone who was ever close to women climbing the corporate ladder in the 80s and 90s knows all too well that this hard-edge behaviour was one of the only means a woman could utilise to be taken seriously in the board room.
Cale basically takes shit from every single other character throughout the entire film. She takes it all in her stride, gives it right back, and never compromises — nor allows to be compromised — her intellect, her values, or her body. To further solidify her superiority, Cale eventually manages to take control of the Warbeast and turn it on its evil creator.
Pouget masterfully adds human vulnerability to the character of Cale in a scene in which she is forced to recall an intensely horrifying personal experience — one we are offered glimpses of in her nightmares. The story she tells (which involves her baby daughter and a garbage disposal unit) is visceral and intense and unforgettable. New parents may want to skip forward during this scene because it’s just… Ugh. I can’t even.
Pouget’s character Hayden Cale deserves to be noted in the annals of kickass women on-screen.
Overall
Death Machine: there’s just so much to love! But only if you enjoy B-grade sci-fi horror with lofty (if not always achieved) scripting goals and genuine heart pounding terror. Or maybe you just really enjoyed Blade (who didn’t?) and are keen to see the director’s earlier works building up to that particular masterpiece.
Child experiments, Universal Soldier-style combat veterans in cybersuits, corporate irresponsibility, a continuous nighttime motif, shredded flesh… There is so much more to discuss in this film, but we’d be getting deep into spoiler territory then and you’d probably prefer to discover this stuff for yourself. You’ll just have to grab yourself a copy and sink into it. The silliness might be a bit much for some, but in its role as a trapped-in-building-with-psychotic-monster film, Death Machine gets top marks.
Score
For me and my killer robot friends 9/10
Everyone else 6/10
