Scanners (1981)

Acting:		Partying:		Girls:
Blood:		Language:		Gore:
Violence:		Humor:		Sexuality:
Torture:		Predictability:		Overall:

Ah, Scanners. With two sequels, a failed television series and a big-budget remake on the way, why not revisit the film that started it all? Director David Cronenberg (A History of Violence, The Fly, eXistenZ) is practically still an infant here, crafting a sort of late 70's paranoid Americana vibe mixed with kooky sci-fi theories about ESP and a few exploding craniums. Scanners, while ostensibly a suspenseful sci-fi thriller, ends up as more of a horror film in much the same way the original Terminator does. Sure, we're talking about telepathy and telekinesis here, but all it boils down to is gore, gore, gore.

Comparing Scanners with Terminator probably gives it too much credit though. While Terminator was ahead of its time, Scanners is firmly rooted in 1981. Scanners are people who have been born with incredible but dangerous mental powers. Sort of like the X-Men, except instead of having all kinds of different powers, they all have the same one. Over the course of the movie, it becomes less and less clear what this power actually is. At one point it is explained as form of extra-sensory perception that allows the user to connect his nervous system to that of another living being. In practice, it looks like bad actor's faking diabetic shock to Devo B-sides. With it, you can read thoughts, cause heart attacks, control people like puppets, and... hack computers? In one memorable scene, veteran B-movie badass Michael Ironside uses his power to explode a rival Scanner's head in one of the most grotesque special FX sequences ever used in film. It is this moment for which the film is probably best known and fondly remembered. Sadly, it comes rather early and little that follows is as interesting.

Our hero is Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), a deranged, ...

continue reading...