Screamers: The Hunting

I thought the original sleeper 'Screamers (1995) (with Peter Weller) was an agreeable, if unspectacular sci-fi thriller, which at the base had an intriguing story but this cheaper and straight to DVD fare doesn't do anything out of the ordinary but to stew up the same get-up linked together by a bunch of uninspired ideas and devices. The background of these deadly creations doesn't pull you in anymore and the throwaway script could've done a lot more than the predictable situation we found the story opts for. The sub-standard special effects were reasonably catered for such a production, they weren't great nor were they terrible. Even with its crisp look, better than expected performances (led by a stern Gina Holden and a small part for Lance Henriksen) and some bloody pulp (with some very vicious attacks). However it did lack a relentless sense of paranoid intensity for any of the thrills to work and made the pace completely haggard. Every now and then I would check the timer on the DVD player and to my surprise it was going to be a drag… a real slow viewing. Tell me, you couldn't see that sudden revelation coming too? As it is, 'The Hunting' is a bland b-movie which makes you appreciate the original even more.

Greetings,

I will keep it short. This is a movie full of clichés and inconsistencies in relation to the original. Mediocre at best - it should not be considered "Canon" in my opinion as Screamers deserves a proper sequel.

The narrative is broken at best - remember the original? The screamers were made on Earth, there was no point in going back to planet 6B to "retrieve data". It was on Earth to begin with.

Sfx are terrible and could work only for short intros in a video game. The Screamer animations look very bad and they are repetitive. The combat scenes are also disappointing, and don't provide any thriller whatsoever. The best scenes of the movie are not the ones where Sfx is used.

The acting is not terrible but there is a lack of fluidity, as none of the protagonists are memorable the relationships between them are superficial. A black guy was a member of the team - but he dies quite early. Heroically. I suppose that's what it is called these days - a "racially inclusive" movie.

The original was a pure 90s classic, it had its own charm. There were some plot inconsistencies, but it tried to surprise viewers. Remember the child robot? It was creepy. Here on the other hand we don't have any of that.

I personally would like to ignore this as a sequel. Can somebody make a movie where the Earth civilization dies, and Sirius 4 inhabitants face the imminent threat? That would be a lot more plausible.

I would like to see a proper sequel, a reboot of sorts.

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.

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.

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.