Screamers
Screamers (1995)
A ton of Matte Paintings, Stop Motion Robots, and a badass Peter Weller… there really isn’t much more I need from a sci-fi, but Screamers also offers Dan O’Bannons superb script based on a Philip K Dick Story so there’s no wonder I watched this film loads in my teens.
While i’ve never read the original novelette Screamers is based on, a little research showed it was one of those paranoia Cold War stories and that definitely fits with the adapted Sci-Fi. America and Russia are swapped out for the Alliance and NEB, while Earth is switch to Sirius 6B, and away we go.
I love the setup and plot for this one. It’s a simple A to B story––and back again––but with so much tension along the way. Peter Weller is superb, and the matte painting are phenomenal. The burned down city looks great and the Screamers themselves are an insane concept while also unfortunately feeling like something that we really would come up with.
It’s pure sci-fi from the opening crawl and doesn’t relent. We have big business fighting over miracle energy on far away planets, intergalactic conspiracy's, a multitude of advanced killer robots, cigarettes that save lives by helping with stupidly high radiation levels, and cool bases. There’s world building through-out without it other being an exposition dump too––they get that out the way in the super long opening text.
The relationship between Joe (Weller) and Jefferson (Lauer) is the heart of the film with the grumpy Joe learning to tolerate and care about the chatty rookie. The human side to the robot story. I always like those sort of things and its done really well.
But as mentioned, outside of the always superb Weller the thing I love most about Screamers is the Matte Paintings. And they’re not shy to use them. I’m not sure i’ve seen a film with this many in before and every single one of them are great. You really don’t need CGI, although this film fits in a bit of that as well with the opening and closing sequence.
I could have done without the bombastic last ten minutes, but the rest of the film is stunning sci-fi at its best. It’s a film I don’t think too many people know about, but they should. It was a favourite in my teen years and watching it now I dare say it’s even better. One i’ll always recommend, and am glad I reconnected with.
