Screamers
Year: | 1995 |
Production Co: | Fries Film Group |
Studio: | Columbia Pictures |
Director: | Christian Duguay |
Writer: | Philip K Dick/Dan O'Bannon/Miguel Tejada-Flores |
Cast: | Peter Weller |
I remember almost no details about this little sci-fi flick, other than the liberal helpings of plot and set design borrowed from Aliens and other post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies.
Peter Weller is the leader of a band of mercenaries left to die on a planet ravaged by war, but hope comes in the form of a messenger who rather ambiguously informs the group peace is looming if only the warring factions can get together before he's cut down by a screamer - the autonomous, computer controlled killing machines deployed on the planet years before which have evolved to destroy all life without discrimination (think small Transformers before CGI).
He decides to lead his band of disposable heros out of safety and off across the wastelands to see if there really is an end in sight to the war, a path that leads them through the terrain patrolled by the titular killing machines. It's a neat little premise, though a little contrived, and an effective thriller.