Screamers (1995)

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1. 

   fetzu

   

   What's not to like about a movie set in a post-apocalyptic world in which you have to shoot children to survive? Also, flamethrowers!

   10 years 11 months ago
2. 

   dpanter

   Epic. "Can I come with you?" 12 years 8 months ago
3. 

   Siskoid

   I remember renting Screamers when it was new - the people who were with me wanted to see Roy Dupuis, a hot French Canadian actor at the time, though I was perhaps more interested in "based on a short story by Philip K. Dick". Well, Dupuis' OTT performance wasn't going to translate into English-media stardom for him, and like most Dick adaptations, it uses the ideas and errs on the side of action flicks. That said, it actually does a better job of bringing out the story's themes, even if it's not quite Blade Runner. Shot in a wintry abandoned mine somewhere in Northern Quebec (and really making the best use of that), "Sirius 6B" is a colony planet forgotten in the wake of a war between a government and a corporation, people from both sides left to fend for themselves against "screamers", mobile mines that learn, adapt, and evolve. The script is actually pretty good, allowing for hope in its bleak statement about humanity, and I always like Peter Weller, an underrated screen presence in my opinion. The failures are mostly technical. 1995 is way too late to have shoddy blue screen and twitchy stop-motion, even if the designs are cool, though we're right on time for bad CG. The practical effects are much better and I got a thrill out of the "catchphrase monsters" which are now a staple of Doctor Who. Some amateurish fight choreography and editing that throws the shocks away from the twists sink the movie further. And yet, if you forgive it its technical flaws (or imagine it as having been made 10 years earlier), there's a bit of a cult classic in there. 4 years ago

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