Planète hurlante 2

Don't waste your time. I just caught a viewing of this. Waste of my time.

I like sci-fi, I even like bad sci-fi movies. I will watch anything with Lance Henriksen in it. This movie had bad special effects, no plot. The movie plays out exactly as you might think it will. There are 0 surprises anywhere. Many parts make no sense.

The chicks are cute. Beyond that it is a waste of time. Someone posted in the forums a few weeks ago what they thought the entire plot of the movie would be. I really wish they would stop making such horrible direct to video sequels of movies I like. People would go to the theaters for a good screamers 2 movie.

Observing the comments I've read that give this film a 1 star rating, it is really not that bad, there are some negative points to it but also a lot of positive points that make up for it, one of the negative points is that its predictable, you can tell who's going to survive and who's going to get turned into mince meat as soon as the main characters are introduced, the effects are to me the usual DTV standard, not overly impressive and to bad either.

The acting wasn't that bad either, some performances could've been better though, Lance Henriksen's performance in the film certainly stands out like always, even though he's only in it for more or less 20 minutes.

If you've read the negative comments before reading the positive, just bare in mind that this is a DTV film, and obviously had a low budget, so this is a good movie via DTV standards, and wasn't really better than the first one but it also wasn't worse.

This one isn't Movie Theatre grade by any measure. But it aims a little higher than pure "Made-for-TV" or "Direct-to-DVD" offerings.

Mercenary/Rescue mission answers a distress signal coming from a previously thought lost planet/colony from the previous 'Screamer' chapters. They land and attempt to survive while unraveling the aftermath of that world's little "civil war".

Many reviewers will give a thumbs down for the predictability-- but seriously, there's nothing wrong with formula if it entertains. And I think we should give the film makers some credit for not immediately letting the viewer clue in on the plot twist until late into the movie.

The FXs were believable and well done, and the space ship was cool. Even the Uniforms were neat. There's gore, but it was measured and not ridiculously over the top.

This movie is good for a slow Saturday afternoon with munchies. And no- you don't need to see the previous 'Screamer' Installments to understand or enjoy this one.

My main quibble-- Why are some Sci-Fi movies makers always defaulting to a Shot of Mars and the Valles Marineris when they need to posit an alien world orbiting another star? Jeez-- photoshop yer own planet, for chrissakes!

I caught the first "Screamers" in the theater and enjoyed the heck out of it. Director Christian Duguay had the foresight to use some decent actors (Peter Weller chiefly among them), paid attention to fashioning a politically charged story and did his best to deliver a decent film. Hey, it wasn't perfect, but he succeeded more than not.

Now comes Sheldon Wilson who tries to make up for a ridiculous story with some interesting visuals. If you give bad actors some good dialogue or even good actors some bad dialogue, you sometimes get lucky. However, when you give bad actors some bad dialogue, riddle a plot with inconsistencies, gaping holes and a lack of any logic while making it all extremely easy to pick out every twist and turn to come, then you get "Screamers: The Hunting".

Things are still bad on Sirius 6B and when a distress signal is sent to Earth, the Alliance dispatches a few 20-somethings to seek out any survivors and bring them back home. Speeding their efforts is some sort of super storm that's going to wipe out all life on the planet, giving them a couple of days to complete their mission.

Along the way they'll meander around, discover some survivors, run, discover that Screamers have gotten aboard their ship (how, exactly, is never disclosed), run back to the survivors, get the majority of the survivors slaughtered, leave with someone meant to be a red herring (right), meander some more while looking for fuel cells and... Let's just leave it at lots of meandering, lots of banal dialogue, lots of bad acting and a thankless appearance by Lance Henrickson. Why didn't they put Henrickson in charge of the mission? The man has presence and the young crew members simply do not.

And the end? It's as predictable as the rest of the film. Oh, and don't forget to count how many times the characters mention the word "screamers". Screenwriter Miguel Tejada-Flores seems to think it's a really cool word and repeats it every opportunity he gets.

I was extremely excited to learn that somebody picked up the story again and moved forward with it. And after watching "Screamers: The Hunting", I think Sheldon Wilson owes fans of the original film an apology.

There are quite a few reviews stating this is utter crap. I don't think it's quite that bad, for a straight to DVD sequel it's one of the better ones I've seen.

I liked the original Screamers, it's one of the best kept secrets of 90's sci-fi. Not a perfect movie by any means, but a good sleeper. In this movie you have a rescue team heading back to Sirius 6B.

The plot is actually quite similar to Cameron's Aliens, and does a pretty good job at it. Quite a few of straight to DVD movies don't have a plot even this strong, even if it's something you've seen many times before. It may also be the point that saves this movie, that it relies on a formula that's already proved good.

The sets and production values are surprisingly good. The space ship looks believable, the gore is surprisingly strong (even too strong for my liking) and some of the images are genuinely creepy.

What tunes the movie down a bit is the acting/casting. While there are a few passable performances, most of them are just not good. Most TV series have better casting. The acting is not as over the top as it could be, but there are some performances that just don't work. Lance Henriksen is a capable and charismatic actor and I'm really not sure why he's into these b- horror movies these days.

Still it's better than what people here are writing. It's not a masterpiece, but entertaining enough to keep you seated for it's duration.