Screamers (1995) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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It’s like a sci-fi Edvard Munch painting, come to life.

Screamers does not sound like a typical sci-fi film based on the title alone, but quickly becomes apparent that it’s like every other sci-film. The film is packed with too many ideas and not enough characters that the audience cares about. But if you’ve come for killer robots/cyborgs and action, you may be pleasantly surprised.

First Impressions

Peter Weller leads a colony of people on a remote planetoid. They have created small robotic creatures to protect them from their enemies, but something has gone wrong. These robots are evolving and replicating, some even look like humans. And they’re out to exterminate the people. The only way to tell them apart is by their screams. The trailer also lets us know this is by the writer of Blade Runner and Total Recall, but never says his name. Of course, it’s Philip K. Dick.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

In the year 2078 on the mining colony world of Sirius 6B the soldiers of the Alliance continue their 10 year war with the New Economic Block (NEB) for the mining of Berynium, an ore which has solved Earth’s energy crisis. Unfortunately, the mining of the ore releases a dangerous amount of radiation which is what the Alliance had objected to in the first place, and what started the war. A NEB soldier is killed within feet of an Alliance bunker by a group of Autonomous Mobile Swords, small robotic drones nicknamed Screamers, for the sound they emit when attacking. They were created by the Alliance to kill NEBs. The Screamers ignore Alliance soldiers due to their tabs, electronic bracelets that mask their heartbeat.

The soldier was transporting a message for the Commander, Joe Hendricksson (Peter Weller) from the NEB Commander wishing for a peace negotiation. His second-in-command Chuck Elbarak (Ron White) doesn’t believe the validity of the message, so they contact Earth. The holographic response from Secretary Green (Bruce Boa) indicates that a truce is already underway on Earth as there has been more Berynirum found on Triton 4. A commercial transport requests permission to make an emergency landing, but when the ship crashes it turns out to be a military vessel with only one survivor.

Ace Jefferson (Andy Lauer), a new grunt, tells Joe and Chuck that their war is not over on Earth and that he is being sent to fight on Triton 4. Believing he’s been lied to by Earth command, Joe decides to head to NEB base with Ace to make that peace treaty. Communications are so fouled due to the radiation that the only way to talk is face to face. On the way, they find a young boy, David (Michael Caloz) surviving on his own, with only his teddy bear to keep him company. Ace convinces Joe it would be inhuman to leave him, so they bring David along.

As they approach the NEB base, Becker (Roy Dupuis) shoots David revealing a mechanized inner core. The pair of Alliance soldiers are shocked by this revelation. Jessica Hanson (Jennifer Rubin) explains that they’ve seen hordes of this new model Screamer before. Joe removes a chip from the David-model, which indicates it’s Type 3. He convinces Hansen and Ross (Charles Powell) that they need to make peace, but none of them can find any NEB soldiers alive. They have all been killed by Screamers that look like lizards. Joe identifies these as Type 1 Screamers. But what are Type 2?

They are attacked by a horde of David’s and narrowly escape. Tensions between the group get higher realizing that any of them could be a robotic human. Becker kills Ross due to his repetitive language and general demeanor. Unfortunately he was wrong, and Ross turns out to be human. They decide to head back to the Alliance base, but receive weird messages once they get there. More David’s come out of the Alliance base, and Joe realizes that it is just the four of them left. Ace uses a mini nuke he removed from a storage locker in the base to kill the Davids, but is himself killed by Becker, now revealed as a Screamer. Joe kills the Becker-dupe and heads for a secret shuttle with Hansen, who he has fallen in love with.

Joe cuts Jessica’s hand to prove she’s human, and while shocked, she says she doesn’t need him to prove anything as she loves him too. The shuttle is made for the Commander only, so no one else knew about it. As they prepare it to launch, “Chuck” appears attacks Joe, revealing itself to be a Becker model Screamer wearing Chuck’s skin. Killing that Screamer, Joe starts to launch the ship when he is attacked by a second Jessica. The two female Screamers fight amongst themselves, with the first version killing the second. She lets Joe go home on his own. En route the Teddy Bear from David, which is on the ship, begins to move on its own.

“Things ain’t what they used to be.” – Joe Hendricksson

History in the Making

It’s rare that there’s a sci-fi film from the 80s or 90s that I haven’t seen before. But Screamers fit that bill, which is weird. It seems like a film that would have a slightly wider reach than it apparently does. For one thing, it’s based on a story by Philip K Dick, author of dozens of great science-fiction tales, but primarily known (at this time) for Blade Runner and Total Recall. This is a lesser known film based on a 1953 story called “Second Variety,” which follows basically the same plot. It was scripted by writer Dan O’Bannon, whose previous work included Dark Star, Alien, Heavy Metal and also Total Recall. And finally the film stars Peter Weller from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension and Robocop. So the fact that it’s not a more well regarded film is strange.

It could be that the film is not all that great. While the storyline was probably cutting edge in 1953, 40 years later a lot of these issues and themes have been dealt with. It uses a lot of sci-fi tropes and none of the characters stand out as particularly likable enough to care if they are, or are not, robots. The special effects vacillate between moderate and hokey, and the run time makes it seem overly long, for what it is, which is a horror film in sci-fi gear. There’s nothing that particularly stands out in the film, directed by Canadian Christian Duguay, who was tapped to continue the Scanners franchise with Scanners II: The New Order and Scanners III: The Takeover. Between the three of these films, they may be his best known, or recognizable work.

Genre-fication

First and foremost Screamers is a science-fiction film. It’s a standard sci-film as well, meaning that it has a number of ever-present ideas that occur in many films and stories from this era and before. It takes place in the future, on a backwater, alien world, where new technology threatens the characters. It also has the post-apocalyptic vibe and evil corporate overtones as was popular in the 80s and early 90s. Into that mix, a small handful of military characters are thrown to fight for survival, and hopefully escape. Additionally, a little horror gets injected with the fear that they can be killed by anyone at any time, including people believed to be friends. Unfortunately, by the time this film was produced, easily half a dozen films had told these stories better.

The film comes off as a mix of Aliens (soldiers trying to escape a colony world while fighting off hordes of alien monsters), The Terminator (humanoid robot becomes a killing machine) and The Thing (isolated researchers try to determine which among them has been replaced by an alien organism). It’s not to say that films that make use of pre-existing ideas, themes, or plot can’t be enjoyable. But in this case the movie seems to plod along with these existing ideas and not add anything new to the genre. There is no use in guessing about which of the crew may be “replicants” as there’s little to no clues. In hindsight, two moments with Jessica that seemed ridiculous writing may in fact be foreshadowing, which makes them a little more interesting. If she is a Screamer from the first moment she appears, then her sponge-bath in front of Joe moments after they meet was not just a way to add a little PG-13 spice to the film. It was probably part of the robots’ programming to titillate the men it meets before killing them. Later, after Joe cuts her hand, she tells him that he doesn’t need to prove anything to her. At the time it seems like a sappy love moment, but with the knowledge that she’s a robot, it can be taken that she knows he’s not a Screamer, since she is one. Unfortunately too much of the film has characters just going through the paces and not creating any kind of bond with the audience to root for anyone in particular.

Societal Commentary

Another issue with the film is that it may be trying to include too much in its 100+ minute run time. It has parallels to war movies of the era, specifically the Vietnam War, in which soldiers are fighting a never ending war of attrition where they get no support from back home. They are lied to by their superiors (which actually may be misinformation provided by the Screamers), and left to survive in a toxic atmosphere, where the only cure is smoking red anti-radiation cigarettes. A cure that may be worse than the disease.

Screamers also sets up an evil corporation in the mining guild. The long and confusing opening crawl explains that the New Economic Block wanted to continue mining for the wonder-ore Berynium even though the radiation released was killing its workers. A group of miners plus some scientists, dubbed The Alliance, demanded the end of mining operations. The company, rather than realizing that their workers were more important, decided to go to war with these disgruntled employees. Crazy, right? The NEB then bombed their own colonies with nuclear warheads and continued the war for 10 years. In response, the Alliance created these self-replicating robots–Screamers, which they completely lost control of. Of course, the characters we meet end up realizing they’re not fighting the war they think they are. They believe they are at war with the NEB, but in reality they are fighting their own creations which have evolved past their expectations.

As with other stories of replicants, robots and cyborgs, their quest for autonomy and humanity is often a common theme. Here, little is focused on these characters except as antagonists. Only the last few minutes has the Jessica-prime Screamer admitting that she has developed feelings for Joe and destroying another Jessica-model. Joe jokingly says that they’re “coming up in the world – you’ve learned how to kill each other.” It’s another evolution, but not necessarily an intended one. The end of the film doesn’t address any of this. It only sets up the possible sequel with the teddy bear being revealed as yet another type of Screamer, and making a dour ending even more unpalatable.

The Science in The Fiction

One thing that is not really addressed is the quick evolution of the Screamers. The opening has unseen models burrowing under the ground to attack the NEB soldier. Presumably these are the lizard looking model, or something even more rudimentary. But quickly the audience is introduced to the David-model, the Becker-model, and the Jessica-model. All three are evolutions on the previous version. But how did these stay unknown from the Alliance for so long? The film makes it seem like these evolutions happened quickly, but perhaps since the directives of the Screamers were to attack the NEB, these evolutions have been occurring for years, and have just been unseen.

The tabs worn by Alliance members might have kept the interim models away from their soldiers for a small amount of time, but presumably once Joe discovered the other models at NEB headquarters, there was nothing preventing the David and Becker models from overrunning the Alliance base. The tabs, which are described as devices that “broadcast your heartbeat one step out of phase,” which make the soldiers “invisible” to the Screamers, as there is no heartbeat. This is why they only work for the people they are coded to, since everyone’s heart beats differently. This is something that the Screamers decided they needed to “breed” out of their progeny if they were to survive and adapt.

The Final Frontier

Maybe adaptation is the final word for this film. The humans have been stuck in a rut for a decade fighting with themselves, while their true unseen enemy is plotting, planning, and evolving literally underneath their feet. Presumably the story that the film is based on has a better grasp on these thematic elements and has more engaging characters. There was a sequel created for this film that went straight to video in 2009 (big surprise, right). Screamers: The Hunting stars Gina Holden, Stephen Amell, and Lance Henriksen as a group of soldiers return to Sirius 6B in what is described as a rehash of the events of the previous film.

Screamers is not the worst film from the decade by far, but does feel like a low budget rehash of other popular titles. Peter Weller is probably the only actor that gets any recognition today, which was the initial draw for me. It definitely has things to say, but could have benefited from a streamlined script where the best parts were enhanced and some of the detritus was jettisoned. It just needed to evolve a bit before being released.

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