Take a very close look
If you can get that big ball of incredulity regarding the background of Screamers (1995) down your throat, the balance of the movie is a nitty-gritty story that hews fairly close to the logic inherent in the background and premises, bringing a certain grim integrity to this example of noir.
The NEB is a corporation mining for “barynium” (I think) on another world, but when the scientists realize that radiation is flooding out of the mines, they demand they be shut down. The greedy corporation refuses, and the scientists and miners shut them down by force; the corporation retaliates through the use of nuclear weapons.
It’s five years later, the Alliance and the soldiers of the NEB are holed up in bunkers, and the revolt now employs “screamers,” cat-sized robots capable of fast burrowing through the sand of the planet, equipped with sensors with which to distinguish friend from foe (through “tabs” worn by the Alliance), armed with “swords” with which they hack opponents to pieces and make an unholy racket.
And they’re also armed with artificial intelligence.
When an NEB soldier appears in front of an Alliance outpost carrying a message, and is hacked to pieces by the screamers, the message is conveyed to the Alliance commander. It’s a request for peace negotiations, as the NEB has found a new source of barynium and no longer needs this planet.
The commander, along with a new recruit rescued from a crashed transport, decide to investigate, and they make their way to the NEB bunker. On the way, they pick up the unexpected: a child, clinging to his teddy bear, who has survived these 5 years in the ruins of a city, and they take him with them.
When they come across an NEB outpost, they come under fire, which is certainly unexpected, but even more unexpected is the target: the child. And when the child is hit, it doesn’t bleed.
It erupts sparks.
The Alliance commander discusses this with the NEB outpost, who seem half-insane, but agree to take him to the NEB commander, if he can be found. But the place is a charnel house, dead soldiers hacked to pieces, and no sign of the commander. And now a new type of screamer appears, a type that appears to be collecting intelligence.
Joining forces, the Alliance and NEB troops retreat out into the open, hurrying back to the Alliance outpost. Communications has been lost, apparently due to the systemic radiation, but as they approach, suspicion takes hold, and they avoid being caught in the flood of screamers which bursts forth from the compromised outpost.
Now down to two, the commander and a black marketeer woman, they decide to head for the emergency escape ship and return to Earth. Once there, and discovering the ship can only take one, a double of the black marketeer woman appears.
She’s a screamer.
In fact, they’re both screamers.
But because the first one has fallen in love, they fight, and in the end, the double is dead and the first is badly damaged, confessing all.
The commander boards the ship and it takes off for home. As we watch, a reflection in a viewport reveals a teddy bear.
And it’s moving.
While there are certainly some plot holes to go along with the preposterous background, and as long time readers of this blog will realize, I was very appreciative of the subtle but effective handling of the question of how artificial intelligence might evolve in response to the evolutionary pressures of being in the middle of a shooting war – and realizing that the side that created it isn’t necessarily the side it must be on. While Ex Machina (2015) was a more vivid and shocking movie, it didn’t address the question of how an artificial intelligence might evolve; it was really about the madness of the inventor infecting his creation, which may be more romantic or dramatic, but is less believable than the ideas presented in Screamers.
This is a dark and depressing movie, featuring characters at the end of their rope, in the midst of the insane situation which is war, struggling to adapt to a situation in which the constants have become variables, the servants struggling against masters.. It’s also one of the few movies I’ve caught on TV which I regret not seeing uncut, as there were some anomalies possibly attributable to the ready blade of the TV editor which detracted from the movie.
If you’re in the mood for some futuristic darkness, you may find Screamers is the under-rated movie for you.
