Screamers

Screamers is a deeply unpleasant yet thrillingly tense science-fiction film set in 2078, when a global mining corporation is at war with its miners, among other places on the barren planet Sirius 6B. There, Hendricksson, commander of one of the miners' bases, receives a mysterious message in which the enemy asks for peace talks. At the same time, a plane crashes near the base. Only a young soldier survives. He has a very different account of the war from the one Hendricksson knows from the official channels.

Hendricksson decides to seek out the enemy base with the young soldier as his companion. Both must wear a wristband shield that protects them from the screamers of the title. These screamers are self-replicating weapons resembling small predators. They can cut a human being to pieces in a matter of seconds - and they evolve. As the plot unfolds, it turns out that the deadly screamers have been produced in even more advanced, human-like versions. Creepy!

The idea of the screamer weapons is good enough to carry an entire film. Besides the constant suspense, the film has another quality, namely its atmosphere, which is thoroughly apocalyptic. Perhaps it is because Screamers is Canadian rather than American that it dares to have such a depressing ending. In fact, the ending is not unlike the ending of one of the "Alien" films.

Yet another excellent Philip K. Dick adaptation!