Screamers

Based on an Philip K Dick's short story 'Second Variety', 'Screamers' is set on the planet Sirius 6B in the year 2078 and focuses on two warring factions and the weapons they develop in order to defeat one another. Given the paltry budget, I was pleasantly surprised to find this a relatively high quality production, with reasonable performances by the lead actors. Both Peter Wellers and Roy Dupuis do the film credit. Although the plot suffers from a cumbersome backdrop and some rather far-stretched concepts, the film moves along at a reasonable pace and is sprinkled with its fare share of tension-filled moments. My biggest disappoint with this film is that it takes what is Philip K. Dick's greatest polemic against the cold war and the arms race and fails to translate this onto the big screen. the neurosis and paranoia, so prevalent in the short story, are missing from this adaptation. 7 out of 10.

I'm a big fan of Philip K. Dick, and so I already knew the basic story behind Screamers. (it was based on a short story of his). On seeing the film, I was satisfied with the way that they managed to work around the original's cold war trappings. Also, despite the low budget, the effects were sufficiently good to suspend disbelief. In fact, the attention to detail (surroundings, back-ground, odd gadgets etc.) was excellent, as is important in all sci-fi films...by creating a coherent world, the movie becomes that much more convincing. The performances were excellent, for such a low budget, and some of the lines were very quotable (up there with the script of 'Aliens' if you ask me). This is always an advantage. However, right at the end, I felt a little let down by the love-scene. It kind of destroyed Philip k. Dick's 'message'. Nevertheless, I managed to overlook that, considering how much fun it was.

This film is no classic, but it's well worth a look. It's really quite good!

Screamers has all the tricks for a good science fiction flick. Alien planets, evil robots, paranoia of your fellow man and fancy weapons. All this is very well done in Screamers and I happen to enjoy watching this whenever I get the chance.

Weller does a superb job with his grizzled character, and manages to hold his own in the action scenes. Most of the other characters are throw away, but their lack of development doesnt set back the plot all too much.

All in all Screamers is a very good look at man's weapons gone awry. the Screamers are just more mobile landmines of today, still around long after their purpose is long past.

Gave it 7 outa 10. for a buck, its a great deal.

For the few who happen to be fans of Peter Weller, this is certainly one to hang onto. A great little film that is just as brutal and vicious as any movie by Paul Verhoeven. I was surprised Verhoeven didn't direct a film like this. A little cheesy, but often times interesting, Screamers is a little film I like quite a bit. The funny thing is, I liked this film, even though I had watched Twelve Monkeys just a couple hours earlier (I did a little theater hopping). A cool little film with a freaky ending.

Woah... I saw it in 1996 in a theater near my small Provençal village, and i simply wasn't expecting that... Christian Duguay proved once again he was terribly underrated by both the press and the public, "Screamers" ("Planète Hurlante" in France i/e "Screaming Planet", nice title too...) is the B-side at its best, the B-efficiency with an almost-A script. The cast is OK (Roy Dupuis was almost a star here in the early 90s, the VFX impressive (for the most of them), and - as some viewers wrote earlier - the first part very promising. Overall, a good job. Take it on video with a couple of friends, some chips'n'soda (ok, beer if ya want).