{"id":11269,"date":"2025-03-05T23:26:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T04:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11269"},"modified":"2025-03-05T23:26:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T04:26:28","slug":"screamers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/03\/05\/screamers\/","title":{"rendered":"Screamers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Screamers <\/strong>(1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Triumph\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sci-fi violence and terror, some language, brief nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Christian Duguay\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dan O\u2019Bannon and Miguel Tejada-Flores\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Normand Corbeil\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rodney Gibbons\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 26, 1996 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, Jennifer Rubin, Andy Lauer, Charles Powell, Ron White, Michael Caloz, Liliana Komorowska, Jason Cavalier, Leni Parker, Sylvain Masse, Bruce Boa.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $5.7M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Two of my favorite sci-fi movies, Blade Runner and Total Recall, are based on source material from Philip K. Dick. Both deal with heavy themes. Blade Runner (adapted from Dick\u2019s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), in particular, questions the nature of humanity with its replicant characters. It\u2019s an intelligent film. I was hoping for more of the same from Screamers<\/strong> seeing as it\u2019s based on Dick\u2019s short story \u201cSecond Variety\u201d. While it employs some of the ambiguity of the older film, especially near the end, depth and intelligence is all but scrapped in this junky, mid-budget, futuristic tale of soldiers being pursued by killer robots on some faraway planet.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The year is 2078 and the setting is Sirius 6B, a once-thriving mining planet reduced to a toxic, war-ravaged wasteland manned by a group of tired soldiers. At one time, it was the main source of Berynium, an energy-providing ore that could have solved the world\u2019s energy crisis. Unfortunately, it turned out to be radioactive and many miners died as a result. Since then, there\u2019s been a war between the mining company, the N.E.B. (New Economic Bloc), and \u201cThe Alliance\u201d, a group of miners opposed to dying of radiation poisoning led by Hendricksson (Weller, RoboCop), a burnt-out soldier resigned to a life that\u2019s little more than death delayed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In order to protect themselves from NEB soldiers, Alliance scientists created \u201cscreamers\u201d, small, self-replicating robotic creatures that burrow underground like gophers. They\u2019re armed with razor-sharp, saw-like blades with which they mutilate anybody not wearing a special bracelet that cancels out the wearer\u2019s heartbeat (that\u2019s how they track their targets). They get their name from the high-pitched, scream-like noise they emit as they kill.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One day, a NEB soldier arrives at the Alliance\u2019s compound bearing a message from his superiors. He\u2019s killed by a screamer before he gets too close; somebody has to retrieve the communiqu\u00e9 from his dead hand (at the end of his severed arm). It seems the enemy wants a sit-down to discuss a possible truce. Despite orders of the contrary from his superiors on Earth, Hendricksson accepts the offer and heads out to NEB headquarters accompanied by Jefferson (Lauer, Necessary Roughness), a newly arrived soldier and lone survivor of the spaceship that crash-lands in front of the bunker. He appears to confirm what everybody on Sirius 6B has been thinking for years, that both sides have been written off and left to die by the leaders on Earth. Nonetheless, the two set out on their mission of peace only to be met with a horrific scenario. It seems that the screamers have evolved and can now assume human form.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hendricksson and Jefferson find this out when they arrive at the NEB compound with a little boy, David (Caloz, Affliction), they found hiding in the ruins of a destroyed city. He claims to be a war orphan but he\u2019s really a \u201cType 3\u201d screamer. He\u2019s destroyed by NEB soldiers Becker (Dupuis, TV\u2019s La Femme Nikita) and Ross (Powell, TV\u2019s Largo Winch) who are holed up with black marketeer Jessica (Rubin, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors). Since the original screamers are Type 1, there\u2019s question as to what (or who) a Type 2 looks like. The soldiers are going to have to work together to survive the oncoming nightmare.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t like Screamers<\/strong> the first time I saw it. I thought it was ugly, boring and stupid. It just didn\u2019t do anything for me. I watched it again about ten years later and enjoyed it. I decided to see how it would hold up on a third viewing this past week. It\u2019s still pretty good albeit derivative. While thematically but superficially similar to Blade Runner, it shares more in common with Alien which really isn\u2019t an overreach considering Dan O\u2019Bannion worked on both screenplays. Both films have space crews lurking around distant, nightmarish planets inhabited by murderous beings. It\u2019s the same basic situation, different details.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The look of Screamers<\/strong> is the stuff of bad dreams. Sirius 6B is a post-industrial landscape of ruined cities, abandoned machinery, rusted pipes, moldy walls, underground passages and a hell of a lot of rats. The few remaining humans are burnt-out shells without a shred of hope. They just want to make it through the day without being killed. It\u2019s a dark, dirty, gloomy and depressing place. It\u2019s ugly yet striking. It makes the dystopian future depicted in The Hunger Games look like a freaking utopia. The effects in Screamers<\/strong> are pretty good by the standards of low-to-medium budget sci-fi flicks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Weller does solid work as the hero of Screamers<\/strong>, a worn-out but tough-as-nails leader whose weariness reads like a book. He looks like he\u2019d welcome death with open arms. Rubin is sufficiently bad ass as Jessica, a gal who more than holds her own against her male comrades.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed capably by Christian Duguay (Live Wire), Screamers<\/strong> is an entertaining sci-fi-horror flick with a fair amount of violence. It tells a pretty good story. It\u2019s a little longer than it needs to be and I wish they had explored Dick\u2019s themes a little more. Still, it\u2019s not a bad choice for a Saturday night movie.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Screamers (1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Triumph\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sci-fi violence and terror, some language, brief nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Christian Duguay\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dan O\u2019Bannon and Miguel Tejada-Flores\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Normand Corbeil\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rodney Gibbons\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 26, 1996 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, Jennifer Rubin, Andy Lauer, Charles Powell, Ron White, Michael Caloz, Liliana Komorowska, Jason […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screamers-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11269"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11309,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269\/revisions\/11309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}