Screamers

(Christian Duguay, Canada/USA, 1995)

In the mid 1990s, I looked forward to seeing this movie in a cinema. [Note: A Blu-ray appeared May 2020 from 101 Films; and a sequel was made in 2009.] There are many impressive names attached to it. Fans of SF literature and film alike no doubt entertained high hopes for a movie adapted from a Philip K. Dick story (“Second Variety”), in the tradition of Blade Runner (1982) and Total Recall (1990).

Connoisseurs of the popular movie genres of action and fantasy would be keen to see anything scripted by Dan O’Bannon [1946-2009], who worked on John Carpenter’s Dark Star (1974) and Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), as well as writing-directing the spirited The Return of the Living Dead (1985). And videophiles are hip to the intriguing career of Canadian director Christian Duguay, who has made some little-known but strikingly stylised movies, including Model By Day (1994) and Scanners II (1991) & III (1992).

But Screamers, alas, is tedious, unimaginative stuff. A long backstory narration, flashed onto the screen at the start, introduces us to the planet Sirius 6B. This is a deserted, ravaged outpost at the fag-end of a future Cold War between a sinister corporation and its ex-workers.

Commander Joseph A. Hendricksson (Peter Weller, veteran of such fine Canadian B movies as Of Unknown Origin [1983]), leads an expedition of hard-bitten guys and one canny gal (Jennifer Rubin as Jessica) across this hellhole.

Meanwhile, underground, self-generating “mobile attack units” evolve into ever-more complex life forms. These little terrors are called screamers because of the screeching noise they make as they zoom in for a kill.

The few arresting plot elements that Screamers contains are recognisable P.K. Dick motifs. Near the start, Hendricksson receives orders from a hologramic transmission of his commander. He makes some dry jokes about dodgy virtual reality technology. But the glitches in this technology hide a sobering possibility. What if the real commander no longer exists and only his image remains? And what if this image is being manipulated by sinister, unseen Others? SF/horror aficionados will, on this point, remember David Cronenberg's great Videodrome (1983) – another deeply Dick-influenced movie.

And here’s another idea clearly derived from that erstwhile author: the screamers have independently transformed themselves from snapping buzzsaws into feeling (and deceiving) human beings. This is a pleasantly mind-boggling concept; unfortunately, the film never takes us below ground to see their strange world, in the way that we witnessed the cold, wired up, collective milieu of the Borg in the two-part “The Best of Both Worlds” instalment of the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1990.

In other respects Screamers is, like many a B movie destined primarily for video consumption, a merry patchwork of references to previous films. The post-apocalyptic setting, and the many severed body parts, conjure the Mad Max series. The chilling movement of these killers just below the earth’s surface recalls that inventive item, Tremors (1990, with a long-running franchise to follow). The manner in which the characters begin to paranoically doubt and test each other’s status as bona fide humans is strongly reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and its many imitations, such as a pertinent episode of The X-Files [1993-2018].

Sadly, before and after bouts of confrontation between Hendricksson’s band of outsiders and the screamers, nothing much happens. Robbed of his usual level of lurid melodrama and histrionics, Duguay fumbles the filming of simple conversation – particularly when the supposedly hardboiled dialogue is this poorly written (Miguel Tejada-Flores, one of 29 scenarists on The Lion King [1994], is generally acknowledged as the re-writer of O’Bannon’s initial, early ‘80s draft).

Only a wild rush of incredible, last-minute twists reminds us of what this director can achieve when all verisimilitude happily slips away. But, as it stands, I would have to say that an average episode of The X-Files or Star Trek: Voyager [1995-2001] is far more exciting and enjoyable than Screamers.

MORE Duguay: The Assignment

© Adrian Martin 18 May 1996