Screamers (1995)

Plot Outline: On a distant mining planet ravaged by a decade of war, scientists created the perfect weapon to keep enemies at bay - Screamers, a race of self-replicating killing machines. But the machines have gone unsupervised for years and have evolved without human guidance. Their mission is to now eradicate any form of human life, even those that helped to create them.

The Review: Written by Philip K. Dick who has brought us such sci-fi as Blade Runner and Total Recall, Screamers had the early potential to go all of the way and join it's brethren at the top of the genre. Unfortunately, the script takes a lot of time to develop the complicated scenario upon which the premise is based and the film never really recovers. There's a multitude of warring factions, shady politics and complicated plot devices which need to be explained first and it all gets a little too muddled early on. Once Weller and co. head off across the desolate wastelands, the film kicks up a gear into more familiar sci-fi/action mode and doesn't really let up until the finale. It borrows heavily from The Thing and Aliens, only here some of the group are actually Screamers. The film does recognise this but the potential is never fully used. Whereas The Thing had the classic blood test scene, this film doesn't really address the paranoia and fear that the group has. It's a pity because not too many films have tried and succeeded in this area of sci-fi. As far as the action side of things, well it's nothing groundbreaking but the set pieces do what they have to do. A lot of the budget seems to have gone into creating the illusion that this is another futuristic planet and a great job is done with this. It looks war-ravaged, with buildings left destroyed, machinery scattered about the place and an eerie quietness about the planet to indicate everything is dead. Even lead actor Peter Weller fits the bill perfectly - his battled-hardened and battle-weary commander is just the icing on the gloomy cake. However the film loses a lot of credibility towards the final third with a series of ridiculous plot twists

Final Verdict: Screamers isn't terrible. The scenes inside the refinery are creepy enough with them stalking and being stalked by the Screamers. But the intro and finale are terrible ways to start and end a film respectively. There was a good film waiting to come out here, it's a shame only half of it did.

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