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Yes it's true... September 1995. The Toronto International Film Festival. The spacious Uptown Theatre. What lured me in? I can't really say... The Film Fest guidebook cited 'Screamers' as a postmoderm film noir that mirrored the style as films such as 'Blade Runner'... 'Blade Runner' of course, is universally known to be a sci-fi masterpiece. Rule # 1: Never attend a film that attmepts to compare itself to a classic motion picture (i.e. "If you liked 'Pulp Fiction', you'll love...")
At the time I was in the end stage of a brief bout with the flu, and must have popped about 15000 mg of vitamin C throughout the course of this cinematic car wreck. The 'C' didn't seem to do much for the flu, and it certainly didn't help this cinematic enema.
As this was the world premiere, the director and cast were on hand to view the proceedings alongside us lowly movie-goers. Before the lights dimmed, Peter Weller took the stage, 'comedically' describing the film as "A simple story of a boy and his teddy-bear." People laughed of course, assuming he was only kidding. Tragically, he was not.
The international stereotype about Canadians being 'friendly and polite to a fault' certainly rang true on this full mooned September evening. When Weller's zero- dimensional space captain would rhyme off some sorry clunker of a one liner (i.e. "I'm sorry... You must have confused me with someone who gives a shit"), the theatre would echo with waves of sympathy laughter from the audience who, undoubtedly did not wish to hurt the aging actor's feelings.
I cannot be completely sure if it was the Vit-C mega-dose or the quality of the film itself, but I left the theatre feeling sick to my stomach. The sheer fact that this garbled, uninspired mess could have been produced in the first place was reason enough for me to determine if the 'Jamieson' Vitamin company might soon have an affordable line of arsenic caplets available to the general public.
In true Canadian style, the director and his cronies received a standing ovation from the Festival crowd. Ironic? Well, allow me to stress this one point: Canadians as a whole are innately polite... but not innately stupid. As I exited the theatre along with several hundred other 'victims', I took it upon myself to audibly allude to my overall dissatisfaction with the film, cleverly articulating something to the effect of "God that movie sucked!!"...
To my satisfaction, the departing crowd appeared to be in concurrance, promptly began blurting out an assortment of profanities and other such colourful criticisms of what was possibly one of the worst films to be released in 1996. One can only hope that the cast and crew were within earshot during this enjoyable display of audience solidarity.
With the passing of time, perhaps the sole reason this film is remembered at all is due to it's ridiculously overblown lawsuit against the movie 'Scream', alledging that the title of the Wes Craven horror flick was far too similar to its own. This, the producers cited, could possibly confuse potential movie-goers and affect box office receipts.
Ironically, the only type of viewer who would assume that a film called 'Screamers' and a film called 'Scream' must be, by default, the same picture, would lie precicely in the middle of the marketing demographic that the producers must have hoped would actually shell out $8 to view this theatrical monstrosity.
Lord help us all...
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