Movie Review - Screamers, The Hunting

In 1995 a decent sci-fi movie was released based on a short story by Philip K Dick, the genius who gave us Bladerunner (or if you don't like him he's the idiot who gave us Freejack). Starring Peter Weller (best known as Robocop) it was a stark piece using the themes of war, identity and paranioa and also had very cool killer robots.

Fast forward 14 years (ironic as the computer tells them this rescue mission is 13 years after the last signals from the planet) to 2009 and we now have Screamers, The Hunting. It's based on the same planet as the original (Sirius 6B) and also features the same killer robots however none of the original cast have returned (Peter Wellers character is killed off in the opening 10 minutes stating he destroyed his ship in Earth orbit so he is just casually dismissed by a computer briefing the new cast) and the film is essentially a rip off of Aliens with a bunch of soldiers exploring a hostile planet investigating a distress call and trying to rescue any humans left alive on Sirius 6B.

The soldiers are told they have 6 days to search and get off the planet before it is hit by meteors which will leave it devoid of all life. We are told why they can't land right next to where the signal was but it was so quick I completely missed the explanation. The soldiers explore a bunker which turns out to be the Screamer manufacturing plant and we see how they scavenge human bodies for parts.

After discussing how much Screamer technology is potentially worth we see our 1st break in discipline when Sexton (one of the soldiers) sneaks away in the night to steal a deactivated Screamer, he hacks it and steals all the information stored inside it however the power he fed it allows it to reactivate after an encounter with a rat. Onboard the ship it appears the engineer is attacked or killed by the reanimated Screamer and whilst exploring a Mining Complex the soldiers are attacked by what appear to be other humans and one of them is killed by a Screamer.

Returning to their ship on day 3 of their mission they do discover their engineer dead (or whats left of him) and decide to try and leave the planet immediately but can't because the Screamer drained their fuel. Sexton tries to convince them its not the same robot they saw in the assembly plant and pretty much gives himself away by acting far too guilty.

On day 4 of the mission the soldiers try to reason with the people they encountered the previous day and explain about their fuel and the storm. We have an arguement about if the soldiers are really Screamers or not and we see the interesting Screamer detection method and we discover at least 2 people on the planet are definately human. The survivors on the planet also tell us a little about different types of Screamers killing each other and this is almost aping the human civil war that was going on in the original movie.

Its hinted that the survivors on the planet may be cannibals and the soldiers discuss the theory even further. When they go to investigate they discover that what they thought were prisoners or the survivors potential food source are actually Screamers (and it's painfully obvious that they are too) but they are easily killed (but not before they themselves kill several people).

By day 5 of the soldiers rescue mission only 2 of the survivors are still alive and only 4 of the solders (including Sexton). During the night the female survivor Hannah pretty much gives away that she is or might be a Screamer (why else would she say Humans are irrational?) and we discover Bronte the gutsy female solder was Hendricksons (Peter Weller in the original movie) daughter.

Entering another bunker to try and find a power source Hannah is accidentally killed (and she was really human) and the soldiers medic is killed and her body is scavenged by a Screamer moments afterwards. The remaining soldiers & Guy the male survivor are saved from a mass Screamer attack by an unknown man using some sort of EMP weapon.

We discover their saviour is Orsow (played by Lance Henriksen) the original creator of the Screamers and he tells them there are no other sources of fuel. Sexton sneaks away and his theft of Screamer technology is discovered by Bronte. Sexton attacks and wounds Orsow, stealing his fuel cells for the ship revealing his mercenary intentions by gladly abandoning the rest of the soldiers.

The removal of the fuel cells starts the self destruct as Sexton kills Orsow and one of the apparently dead soldiers is revealed to have been turned into a Screamer who also kills Sexton. Bronte takes the power cells and destroys Sextons stolen Screamer data chip and she and Guy manage to escape the self destruct and return to the ship.

Guy speculates on a Screamer/Human hybrid and they discover another of the soldiers on board who is also a Screamer and he starts to cast your suspicions about Guy when he used the word "we" a lot but Guy does kill him. They escape the planet and enter suspended animation and we are left wondering if Bronte is now in the same position as her father was 13 years ago, the only human to escape Sirius 6B with a Screamer on board the ship heading for Earth.

Bronte discovers she is pregnant (with Guys baby as they'd had a very annoying soft focus sex scene earlier in the movie but she is way too pregnant after only 2 months) and as Guy reveals he is a Screamer we have an incredibly weak and extremely open ending leaving space for another Screamers movie.

The trouble with this movie is it has virtually no connections to the original, the story is dull and extremely predictable with almost no surprises at all. Half the time you have no clue who characters are (they rarely refer to each other by their names) and there are too many scenes of not much happening with hardly any interaction with the lower grade Screamers. The films 1 big name is killed far too quickly and not utilised very well at all while he is alive. Despite the fact it too 14 years for them to make this most Screamers fans will probably wish they hadn't bothered.