Screamers (1995)

 

In the year 2078, the planet Sirius 6B, once a thriving mining hub, has been reduced to a toxic wasteland by a war between the mining company, known as the New Economic Block ("the N.E.B."), and "The Alliance", a group of former mining and science personnel.

The war came about when the miners discovered that their extraction of ore released toxic gases.  They went on strike, and the mining company hired mercenaries as strike breakers.  Without the industrial scale or numbers to match the N.E.B., the Alliance looked to bolster their forces by creating "Screamers" — autonomous, artificially intelligent self-replicating machines that hunt down and kill N.E.B. soldiers on their own.

The war has reached an exhausted stalemate when a group of Alliance  troops recovers a message from a dead N.E.B. soldier, killed by screamers as he approached the Alliance compound, guaranteeing safe passage through N.E.B. territory to discuss a truce.  Their commander decides to at least hear the offer, and together with a new recruit from Earth, heads out across the wilderness.  It should be relatively straightforward; with their Alliance transponders, they should have nothing to fear from the Screamers.

But the thing about creating autonomous, artificially intelligent self-replicating machines is that ... well, they are autonomous, intelligent and self-replicating.

Screamers is loosely based on a short story by Philip K Dick, whose work also inspired Total Recall and Bladerunner.  I'm giving the film a qualified recommendation not because it's genuinely good, but for its ambience (it feels nicely desolate, paranoid and claustrophobic); for the gall of its blatant Terminator/Aliens mash-up of a script, and for one of the most laughable ending stingers ever offered up by a horror film.

All that faint praise aside though, I do have to give the film some credit for its technical aspects.  It generally makes good use of its limited resources, with well chosen locations and some decent practical effects.  It's all pretty impressive for a budget that was about one fifth that of something like Terminator 2.  The only real weak point in the effects is that a few the green screen overlays are ... not well executed.

The cast, headed by RoboCop's Peter Weller, are also a cut above what you might expect from a low budget science fiction horror film.

Where the film falls down a bit is the script.  I've already mentioned the liberal 'inspiration' it draws from other, better known films, but that's not the big problem.  The big problem is that the antagonists' strategy - and in fact, the plot in general - makes no sense whatsoever.  Moment by moment, the film is generally engaging enough that you don't worry about it as you're watching, but it doesn't bear much scrutiny if you think about it afterwards.

Overall, Screamers feels like elements of a much better story with some interesting themes; "what does it mean to be 'human'?" for instance; have been shaken up in a big bag with a lot of overly familiar action-horror film clichés.  The resulting film is a decent if slightly nonsensical watch; but it's a shame it falls short of what it feels like it could have been.