Screamers (1995)

Dir: Christian Duguay

Not sure why I skipped this one on its theatrical run especially considering Dan O'Bannon (ALIEN, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) has a co-writer credit (with Miguel Tejada-Flores FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY) but I did catch it on VHS and was impressed by its vision of a dystopian future inspired by the Philip K. Dick short story SECOND VARIETY. There's a lengthy text scroll at the beginning of the film but as that same information can readily be gleamed from watching the film I'll chalk it up to studio interference rather than the film makers fearing the film to be confusing.

It's 2078, the location the mining colony Sirius 6B. War has been raging for ten years between the New Economic Block Corporation (N.E.B.) and the Alliance, a federation of miners and scientists turned resistance fighters. The Alliance, finding it difficult to fight N.E.B. due to a lack of funding and resources, created artificial intelligent killing machines. Machines that burrow underground to sneak up on any detected living creature and then spring at their target with whirling razor sharp blades and a high pitched whine. Due to the whine, which sounds a bit like a battle cry, the machines are nicknamed Screamers. Fortunately, the Alliance scientists also created a wearable device, called a tab, that blocks the Screamers from seeing the wearer.

Both sides exhausted by years of war and a new discovery made by the N.E.B. that will obsolete the dangerous mining done on Sirius 6B, the N.E.B. makes a peace proposal to the Alliance. The Alliance is granted safe passage to the N.E.B. HQ. Alliance commander Joe Hendricksson (Peter Weller ROBOCOP) puts together a squad to make the trek to  meet with the N.E.B. But when he gets to the HQ, he finds it overrun by Screamers with only a small rag tag group of N.E.B. soldiers left, commanded by the tough mercenary Jessica Hanson (Jennifer Rubin BAD DREAMS). It is there that he learns the extent to which Screamers have evolved. Not only are they reproducing themselves in factories but they've now created models that look and act human. The former enemies must band together to fight the mechanical threat.

The medium budget SCREAMERS does have a few negatives due to the constraints of its budget that may have turned off its potential audience leading to poor box office returns. Some of the visual effects are dodgy and I'm surprised they made it into the film. A lot of the film takes place in a refinery or in a basement boiler room that we've similarly seen scores of times previously especially in low budget Sci-Fi action / horror films.

There is a lot here to like. The script is smart and the world, while not fully fleshed out, feels like something that can happen. Peter Weller's and Jennifer Rubin's characters are likeable and believable but the rest of the cast are more or less fodder for the Screamers. The carnage dealt out by the Screamers will please the gore hounds watching. Plenty of flashing, spinning blades splitting skulls in twain.

I can't recall reading any Dick (Yes, I should remedy that oversight) but the themes of corporate overreach and not knowing who is human in SCREAMERS are part and parcel of the other films I've seen that are adapted from Dick's stories. It is an intriguing set of themes when done well as it is in SCREAMERS.

*** out of ****