DVD Review: Screamers - The Hunting

In the tradition of Road House 2, Bring It On Again, and just about every other Disney DVD release that happens along these days, comes Screamers: The Hunting, a direct-to-video sequel to 1995’s Screamers with Peter Weller — a movie that fared far better on VHS than it did in the theaters.

Screamers: The Hunting is bad. Really bad. It was one of the longest 95 minutes that I have ever wasted on a boring Sunday afternoon. The less-than-fulfilling storyline has a group of space soldiers venturing back to planet Sirius 6B, the wasteland-like home of precious minerals, satellite radio, and some deadly little machines known as screamers. Their purpose: a rescue mission. Their timeframe: limited — there’s a cataclysmic meteor storm coming in, so their sort of rushed on time. Their ship’s name: The Medusa — which should have been their first hint as to why they should have stayed at home (Medusa? I’m guessing Sailor Killing Siren was already taken?).

While it’s blatantly obvious that the rescue crew is inspired from Aliens, the crew of The Medusa deserve an award for being some of the most incompetent men and women ever to set foot out of a spacecraft. The fools from Starship Troopers 2 had a better chance. The crew of Red Dwarf was more organized. Hell, even the Morons From Outer Space could one-up The Medusa’s crew. I suppose that one could blame the ship’s idiotic senior officer, who has only come to Sirius 6B with the intent of pirating the technology used to develop the screamers and return to Earth a rich man — but, in reality, it’s best if we just blame the screenwriters (who, oddly enough, are the same two individuals that wrote the first film — they must’ve run out of ideas).

After wasting a sufficient amount of time and managing to get several of their own crew members killed, our brave heroes stumble upon some human survivors — and are soon horrified to learn that the screamers have been “evolving” and have figured out how to implant themselves into their human victims, turning them into murderous cyborgs. In fact, the good guys are so horrified that they almost emote even.

Article Author: Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the disgruntled alter-ego of Adam Becvar, a thirtysomething lad from Northern California who has watched so many weird movies since the tender age of 3 that a conventional life is out of the question. …

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