Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Screamers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson January 30, 2019

Though Screamers is one of the least known adaptations of a work by Philip K. Dick, it was initially touted as "the next BIG sci-fi flick" by film critic Steven Rea. In fact, while Sony's studio subsidiary Triumph Films has mostly specialized in direct-to-video releases, it put its full marketing muscles behind Screamers. According to Rea, executives at Triumph unspooled trailer reels, created T-shirts, and had testimonials written about the film, all of which were exhibited on the sci-fi convention circuit (at a time when conventions were growing in number). When the movie screened at the Toronto Film Festival in September 1995, word of mouth was overly positive. Sony put it in nearly 1,600 theaters but it did tepid business and received middling reviews.

One of Screamers' core problems is that something was lost in translation when famed sci-fi scribe Dan O'Bannon adapted Dick's short story into a full-fledged screenplay, which was then rewritten about fourteen years later by Miguel Tejada-Flores. Dick's Second Variety (the literary basis for Screamers) was originally published in 1957 in the anthology, The Variable Man and Other Stories by Ace Books. Production information from Screamers' press kit indicates that O'Bannon wrote his draft in 1980. O'Bannon retained Dick's Cold War themes and pitted US soldiers versus Soviet troops. With the dissolution of communism in the former USSR in the early nineties, though, Tejada-Flores dropped the American-Russian conflict and situated the action in a very cold government outpost called Sirus 6B, which is located far away from Earth. Set in the year 2078, a ten-year war has ensued between the Alliance and the New Economic Bloc (NEB). It's difficult for Alliance troops to venture near NEB's territory because the latter has permeated the colony with a lethal radioactive element. The Alliance has countered with "Screamers," long subterranean androids that slither under the sand dunes and frozen tundra with sharp, whirring buzz-saws. But the Screamers are now also going after the Alliance and have demonstrated the capability of mutating into indistinguishable human form. Peter Weller portrays Alliance Commander Joe Hendricksson, who seeks to negotiate a peace treaty with NEB. Ace Jefferson is one of the lone survivors from a transport accident who joins Hendricksson on his long journey through the desolate wasteland. The two men discover David (Michael Caloz), an innocent-looking orphan with a teddy bear whose lived two years without his parents in a ruinous settlement. In a different ramshackle, the trio encounter Becker (Roy Dupuis), a husky warrior with teardrop tattoos, timorous Ross (Charles Powell), and black market queen Jessica Hanson (Jennifer Rubin). The characters soon find out that the Screamers not only lurk beneath but can also assume human flesh directly in front of them.

Hendricksson and the Alliance are armed to defend themselves.

Screamers is heavy on exposition and while that's one of its biggest strengths, it also contributes to its undoing. Cinematographer Rodney Gibbons and director/Steadicam expert Christian Duguay have skillfully taken the viewer through the vast terrain traversed by Hendricksson. The desertscape in the first reel has been vividly photographed as have the wintry flat plains on the Alliance's unending trek. Visual effects artist Deak Ferrand, whose career began with Screamers and has gone on to work on eighty feature films, creates some hauntingly beautiful matte paintings that alternately show stark bleakness and the cosmic wonder of the universe. But Screamers suffers from structural problems that its aesthetics can't overcome. Scenes are unevenly developed and the plodding narrative can't sustain enough momentum. The Rubin character is introduced too late and O'Bannon/Tejada-Flores have attached her as Hendricksson's love interest. While Screamers seems to have fresh ideas to say about automatons and the dystopic future, they've been much better articulated in the various versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing.

Screamers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Scream Factory has given Screamers its inaugural HD release on Blu-ray with this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. The film's originalyl composed aspect ratio of 1.85:1 has been opened up to 1.78:1 as you won't seen any slim black bars circumventing the frame. The back cover incorrectly lists the former screen ratio. (Nearly all the Columbia Tri-Star DVDs were presented in 1.85:1.) The DI has been struck from an older master but it looks very solid without any telecine wobble or image stability issues. There's dirt throughout the main titles but age-related artifacts largely go away. Please do note the small white scratch in the bottom left corner in Screenshot #20 and the almost translucent tramline and fleck along the frame's left edge in #19. Critic Jack Garner of Gannett News Service praised Ferrand's "moody matte paintings", which he states suggest other-worldliness in the background. The matte work looks nice in high-def but does show its age as an early CGI creation. Steve Murray of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution postulated that Gibbons photographed the film "entirely in tones of chilly gray." Scream's presentation displays this cold palette. Indeed, Screamers was shot in the dead of winter throughout Montreal. Scream has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 34000 kbps.

The 108-minute movie has been given a dozen chapter selections.

Screamers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Scream has only supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix. According to my research, Screamers did receive a DTS presentation in select theaters as well as Sony Dynamic Digital Sound. This is one sound presentation that deserves a lossless 5.1 mix (at minimum). Scream has encoded the stereo at just 1614 kbps (24-bit). I kept wanting the surrounds to come alive because the f/x produced distinct separation along the fronts and were quite active. When Jack Matthews reviewed the film for the Los Angeles Times he apparently heard it with at least Dolby Digital 5.1, noting that the Screamers' buzz-saws eject "a brain-piercing shriek that will tear the covers off your theater's surround-sound speakers." He also wrote that the sound track has a decibel rating of about 120. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Bonnie Britton advised her readers to see Screamers "in a theater equipped with a good sound system." Unfortunately, this sounds like a missed opportunity for Scream. I also felt that the dialogue sounded too murmured and muffled (perhaps by design) as I had to frequently adjust the volume. Composer Normand Corbeil's score sounds like warmed-up Bill Conti, which is a plus but it isn't that original.

Fortunately, Scream provides its trusty English SDH.

Screamers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Northern Frights – An Interview with Director Christian Duguay (21:12, 1080p)

• NEW From Runaway to Space – An Interview with Actress Jennifer Rubin (18:59, 1080p)

• NEW Orchestrating the Future – An Interview with Producer Tom Berry (23:57, 1080p)

• NEW More Screamer Than Human – An Interview with Co-writer Miguel Tejada-Flores (11:04, 1080p)

• Theatrical Trailer (1:57, 1080p)

Screamers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Screamers is a minor Philip K. Dick adaptation that can't quite get off the ground. The camerawork, matte paintings, animatronics, and wrangling by the crew are all first-rate but the narrative trudges along aimlessly and can't reconcile the script's plot holes. Scream Factory has given the nearly twenty-five-year-old film an above-average transfer without any glaring issues. The audio presentation, however, is disappointing and one craves for a new surround-friendly mix. Scream has recorded four new interviews and typically presages each response by the filmmaker/actor with a text-based question created by a robot computer. The interviews cover the participants' careers and time spent working on Screamers in a general-to-specific pattern. Weller fans may want to add it to their collections. My two cents are that you first RENT the movie but don't buy the Blu-ray outright until you like it enough to warrant its rather steep asking price.