Screamers

This scroll continues for 90 seconds while a guy reads it out loud (presumably for people who can’t read).

Oooh, production value!

I’m not sure how I came to buy this bluray — perhaps it just popped up on a list of “New Sci-Fi In 2K” or something? It’s from the mid-90s, and I’ve never heard of it before.

Hey… this doesn’t look bad. It’s not upscaled VHS or anything…

But that makeup job was not done with high resolution in mind, so was this straight to video thing?

Lemme pause while I google.

Nope:

It premiered at the 1995 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 1995. It was released in the United States on January 26, 1996, by Columbia Pictures.

[…]

The film earned about $5.7 million in the United States and Canada, on a $20 million budget. It was moderately popular in France, Japan, and the Netherlands. Worldwide box office was approximately $7 million.

OK, so that’s why I haven’t heard of it — it was a massive flop (but on a decent budget).

This looks pretty good, actually.

OK, that’s bad green-screen.

Gnarly!

Subtle!

Hey! It’s Robocop!

That guy looks familiar!

Must have seen him in Caroline in the City, I guess?

That’s some nice source code.

This is a very odd movie. They’ve basically got all the plot for a standard corporate-soldiers-on-an-alien-planet-that-the-company-might-be-trying-to-kill-off movie — and that’s a good plot, which is why it’s used so much — but it’s got no rhythm. The patter between the action stuff just sounds off? It’s like they haven’t actually heard any Humans talk before when they wrote the lines?

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

It’s a relief to know that they still have plenty of hair gel in the future.

Nice tats.

It’s a Buenos Aires standoff!

OK, this movie is kinda boring, even if it has a 29% tomatometer.

Sponge bath time!

This film was originally in 1.85:1, but for this bluray transfer they cut it down to 1.77:1, so we’re missing bits to the left and right. Whenever I put on a bluray and it’s 16:9 I immediately go NOOO HOW DID THEY CUT THIS TIME, because no real movies are 16:9. (Well, some Netflix movies are, but even there it’s not the norm.)

I’m still kinda sure that the twist I was expecting ever since they started talking about various types of robots is still going to happen, but I guess they’re saving it for the very last scene?

Nice.

(And the twist I was expecting didn’t happen. Kudos.)

But it’s still a really boring movie, and it really seems like a movie where they didn’t really have a real script, so it’s kinda choppy.

Watching the documentary now… Robocop wanted to get involved with doing rewrites, and the director is saying that Weller is so smart etc, but you can see his frustrations.

Screamers. Christian Duguay. 1995. ⚁