Death Machine (1994)

"It feeds on your fear."

Plot

The new CEO of the Chaank Armaments Corporation wants to improve the company’s public image after heavy criticism for its unauthorised weapons research, and her first port of call is to investigate what is going on in the ultra-secure lab of rogue inventor Jack Dante. After she fires him for his unsanctioned inventions, Dante activates the Warbeast, a killer robot that he has been developing, and sends it to kill anyone who stands in his way. A group of eco-terrorists choose the wrong time to attack the facility, sending it into lockdown and trapping everyone inside with Warbeast.

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I’m really not sure why I hadn’t heard of this a lot earlier in my film-viewing past time, nor why it doesn’t get anywhere near the level of cult acclaim that it so richly deserves. Death Machine is about as 90s cyberpunk as you can get, a film which immediately takes me back to my early days of PC gaming and playing classics such as Command and Conquer which featured plenty of grainy FMVs set in ‘futuristic’ landscapes. Laughably, Death Machine is set in the ‘future’ of 2003, which seems like eternity in the past now as I write this review in 2025! But like digging up a time capsule from days long gone, Death Machine is a fitting example of the 90s and everything that it encapsulated from fashion to music.

Opening with a gruesome massacre that sets the tone for everything that follows, Death Machine wears its B-movie thrills on its heart from the first minute. It’s got a terrific pace to it, bogged down in only a few places with some stilted dialogue, but once the Warbeast gets going, it really does keep delivering set piece after set piece including a gory evisceration inside a lift. There are around four different edits of the film, with director Stephen Norrington unhappy with the original cut, so I’m not sure which one I saw and what the differences were but the one I did watch worked perfectly well. It’s derivative of its obvious influences including everything from Aliens to Robocop and Die Hard but Norrington shows his love of the genre and the fact he is a bit of a nerd by naming a lot of his characters after his horror heroes such as Carpenter, Dante, Raimi and Scott. There are plenty of other pop culture references throughout too including Street Fighter II (the video game that is!) and the winks at the camera really help to cement this as a purely 90s product.

Norrington would go on to helm one of the best action films of the 90s, and still one of the best superhero films of all time, in Blade a few years after this. But after the disastrous behind-the-scenes production of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it seems that Norrington has had enough of making films which is a shame as he had a fantastic eye for detail and visual flair. The bulk of the film takes place inside the Chaank building; a nice sprawling dystopian and industrial complex with lots of steel, concrete, strobe lights and the like. Death Machine was made for around £500,000 which is insane given how polished the entire production looks. It’s hardly Blade Runner in its dystopian vision of the future but the set design and cinematography is nicely stylised, rooted in grim 90s aesthetics and having a “retro-futuristic” look to it.

Death Machine deserves at least a whole star for its titular creation, the Warbeast. A fantastically designed monster, it’s all real and no CGI, with a large head and mouth which is vaguely reminiscent of the alien queen from Aliens crossed with a bit of Velociraptor from Jurassic Park. Norrington and his crew do an admirable job of shooting the creation and editing around it as much as possible so you can get a real sense of the size and scope of it without getting too hung on seeing any rogue wires or cables that are being used to move it. Of course, that all goes out of the window in the finale when you do get to see just how big and bad ass this monster is. Norrington was a special effects man who worked under the likes of Stan Winston and Rick Baker so you know he’s got fantastic pedigree and it shows with this insane monster – Warbeast really needs to have more appreciation and love shown to it.

Brad Dourif gets most of the publicity for being the star of the show and he owns every scene he’s in, chewing the script and going full-on crazy with hints of Chucky-like rage bursting through. His skeezy Dante, an arrogant man-child, socially awkward, who lives in his own bubble and who has his own vision of reality (some would call him an incel nowadays), is one of the highlights of the film, although Dourif sometimes takes his mannerisms and traits a little too far. Death Machine features a Ripley-like performance from Eli Pouget which is serviceable and plenty of supporting actors you’ll recognise from other films – William Hootkins, Richard Drake, Andreas Wisniewski and an early appearance from Rachel Weisz. This type of film is never an actor’s film but everyone is solid and, perhaps the key, believable enough for you to buy into this towering metal monstrosity.

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Final Verdict

A massive underrated fun B-movie, Death Machine deserves to have more of a fan base than it currently does. The film is derivative but it doesn’t hide from that fact, embracing its influences with high energy, extreme violence and a general feeling of competence from the director and crew in really making every single pound of budget count on the screen. There have been hundreds of directors since who would love their films to have an ounce of the artistic talent that Norrington shows in this one. I would really love to see him make a comeback.

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Death Machine Director(s): Stephen Norrington Writer(s): Stephen Norrington (written by) Actor(s): Ely Pouget, Brad Dourif, William Hootkins, John Sharian, Martin McDougall, Andreas Wisniewski, Richard Brake, Alex Brooks Duration: 117 mins