Total Sci-Fi was in the audience for a rare screening of Richard Stanley’s terrific cult classic Hardware on 30th April, as part of Sci-Fi London’s recent film festival.

The film courted controversy back in 1990 after Stanley was accused of plagiarising Kevin O’Neill and Steve MacManus’s 2000 AD comic, Shok!, which resulted in the duo receiving a subsequent credit. However, there seems to be little resentment from O’Neill about the affair, and the artist was on hand to give an introductory talk about Shok! (and his career as a whole) before the screening.

O’Neill recalled how he actually liked the movie when he first saw it, and that struggling comic book writers got used to filmmakers cribbing their ideas. He added that he had the feeling that he and Stanley were of like minds.

Hardware itself remains an astonishing and (despite the lawsuit) a very original picture. Much more than a simple killer robot flick, the film’s stylish visuals, pounding energy and discordant industrial soundtrack work to create a very strange vision of a post-apocalyptic future.

The film is being released on DVD on 22 June with some very cool extras including a booklet featuring Shok!, a commentary from Stanley, and the director’s 1990 documentary Voices of the Moon, which examines the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. We’ll be running a full review of the DVD soon.