Explosive
Summary
From writer / director Stephen Norrington who only made four films before retiring from filmmaking, Death Machine is a dense, sweaty, and pulsating action / science fiction thriller that cross-pollinates RoboCop, Aliens, and The Terminator, and it does it really well with highly stylized cinematography, set design, practical creature effects, and a pace that outmatches some of the best that the genre has to offer.
Plot: A chief executive of a weapons technology company is stuck in a high-rise building with a murderous machine and its demented inventor.
Review: In a near future that resembles a bleak Blade Runner world, a weapons technology company called Chaank is going through a hostile takeover with its Chief Executive member Hayden Cale (Ely Pouget) on the chopping block when a junior exec (played by Richard Brake) threatens to take the company to the next level by giving the company’s number one innovator Jack Dante (Brad Dourif) a leg up by allowing him to design a “frontline morale killer” in the form of a monstrous mechanical beast that can sense fear in humans, which would go against all ethics that the company has been founded on. The company is known for hybridizing humans with technology (sort of like in RoboCop), but because of their continued failures in their super soldier program, the company needs a desperate fix to satisfy the shareholders. But there’s a very big flaw in this plan: Dante is a completely unhinged, demented creep whose obsession with Hayden will totally undermine the company’s needs over his own. When everyone goes home for the night after a day of business, Dante unleashes his “Death Machine” to help him trap Hayden, but also in the mix is a small group of eco terrorists who break into the building to try to expose Chaak’s sins to the world. With a murderous mechanical behemoth running amok in the halls and elevator shafts, sniffing out everyone’s fears to eliminate them, the night will be relentlessly terrifying for everyone made of flesh and blood – including a brainwashed super soldier left behind in Chaak’s disposable waste piles – and the fight between man and death machine will be epic.
From writer / director Stephen Norrington who only made four films before retiring from filmmaking, Death Machine is a dense, sweaty, and pulsating action / science fiction thriller that cross-pollinates RoboCop, Aliens, and The Terminator, and it does it really well with highly stylized cinematography, set design, practical creature effects, and a pace that outmatches some of the best that the genre has to offer. Dourif steals the show with a bonkers performance that is totally in tune with his oeuvre, with a creepy twitchiness and nuance that only he can bring to a role such as the one he plays here. Norrington is generous with the action and monster reveal, which is very impressive and imposing looking: It’s like a steel velociraptor, but bigger and even scarier, and once we see it in its entirety it’s really insane! Fans of underrated genre films should definitely check this one out and discover a gem that has long been ignored or forgotten about.
Kino Lorber’s brand new two-disc release of Death Machine includes three versions of the film, one of which is making its debut here. It includes the 100-minute U.S. cut that Trimark released on DVD many years ago (which was sadly cropped in a pan and scan version when it first came out), the 122-minute foreign cut, and the new director’s cut, and all three versions look amazing in widescreen high definition. Norrington contributes two audio commentaries, and there’s another commentary by two historians, plus an audio conversation with Norrington and creature and makeup artist Alec Gillis, plus five separate on-camera interviews, 2 image galleries, three trailers, and more! The only thing missing here is the soundtrack on a separate CD, which an out-of-print German DVD / Blu-ray release offered. Other than that, this is the definitive home video release, no question about it.