Scanners
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Movie Reviews of Scanners
Movie Review: A Cronenberg Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Every once in awhile I like to dip my toe into a David Cronenberg film. I have seen quite a few of them at this point, from some of his earliest stuff like "Rabid" to his seminal reworking of "The Fly" starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. One thing you will always get out of a Cronenberg film is a serious look at how technology and human beings interact. Like science fiction author J.G. Ballard, Cronenberg's viewpoint towards a synthesis of man and machine is always exceedingly grim, not to mention gory as all get out. The overarching theme in his cinematic examinations seems to be that humans simply do not know enough about the technology they develop, or if they do, their arrogance in the ultimate abilities of mankind never prevents them from charging into potentially damaging experiments. That we are just not far seeing enough to predict the outcome of using new drugs or messing around with human genetics may be a good message to take from a Cronenberg film. "Scanners" should fall into a "Cronenberg 101" class about these messages. Released in 1981, this film helped bring Cronenberg into the mainstream, as well as spawning a host of cheap sequels and a possible remake due sometime next year. Of course, this movie also provides the rabid horror fan with what is possibly the sickest gore scene in cinematic history."Scanners" tells the story of Cameron Vale, a man who has spent most of his life in a perpetual fog. Roaming through the streets of the city as a homeless person, Vale suffers from a plethora of voices constantly yammering away in his head. He cannot hold a job or have a regular life with this problem, so he copes the best way he can by always staying on the run. During one of his excursions in a shopping mall, Vale overhears two women casting aspersions on his grubby appearance. The comments bother Cameron, who promptly causes one of the women to collapse into convulsions merely by mentally concentrating on her. Two thugs in trench coats lurking nearby notice Vale's little performance and promptly chase him down. When our hero wakes up, he is in the company of one Doctor Paul Ruth, a laconic chap who gives Vale the lowdown on what he is and what he must do. Ruth comes across as distant and slightly sadistic, but Cameron trusts him because the doctor knows how to make the voices in his head stop and is the first person to show a real interest in him.
According to Ruth, Cameron is a scanner, a person with the ability to use a congenital form of telekinesis to manipulate other human beings. Ruth shows Vale that an injection of a drug called ephemerol quiets the voices in his head, which are really the voices of people around him that he picks up because he doesn't know how to use his scanning abilities. What Cameron doesn't know is that Ruth works for CONSEC, one of those evil corporations most movies seem to have nowadays, a company developing scanners as a weapon for governments and wealthy individuals. Moreover, Ruth initially fails to tell Vale about the presence of Darryl Revok, a powerful scanner who is building an army of these telekinetics, or how Revok just invaded the CONSEC building and killed six men in an attempt to discover exactly what new tricks the corporation has up its sleeve. Ruth then enlists Cameron to track down Revok and kill him. Along the way, our scanner encounters the beautiful Kim Obrist, uncovers the truth behind ephemerol and how scanners came to exist, and the true identity of Darryl Revok.
Stephen Lack, the actor who plays Cameron Vale, carries out his onscreen duties with all the charisma of an ironing board. Some people claim that this is exactly the way a confused homeless man should act when confronted with such an awesome series of events, but I don't buy this argument. Lack gives a whole new meaning to the term "wooden" and the movie suffers because of it. Fortunately, Michael Ironsides as Revok, Jennifer O'Neill as Kim Obrist, and Patrick McGoohan as the strangely aloof Doctor Ruth make up for the lead character's ham handed performance. Of these three actors, Ironsides steals the show as the unbalanced Darryl Revok. Anyone remotely familiar with this actor's work knows he often plays the lead evil guy in dozens of films, and "Scanners" marks one of his best turns as a baddie. Without Ironsides in the cast, this movie would not be nearly half as good as it is.
The most memorable elements of "Scanners" are both good and bad. The good is the gore, which tops most horror films on the market. The infamous exploding head scene at the beginning of the movie still makes me cringe. In fact, it ranks as one of those rare scenes in a film that actually get worse the more times you see it. The first time you watch the movie, you have no idea that this scanner's head will burst like a balloon. Subsequent viewings are worse because you know what's coming and the anticipation fills you with dread. The final showdown between Vale and Revok revolts as well. What doesn't work in "Scanners" centers on the sudden ability of Cameron to scan a computer system through a public telephone. I simply didn't buy this suddenly revealed ability, let alone that it would lead to the telephone booth exploding. Unfortunately, another drawback is the lack of substantive extras on the DVD. The picture quality is good, but I would have liked a commentary by Cronenberg to explain the philosophy behind the picture. Still, "Scanners" is a must see for horror and science fiction fans alike.
Movie Review: The most terrifying power - THEIR THOUGHTS CAN KILL !!!
Summary: 5 Stars
10 Seconds... THE PAIN BEGINS.This film is a real curiosity because it's a biological horror movie made for a mass commercial distribution. But far from making his cinematic art and vision softer than they were in his previous films, "The Parasite Murders", "Rabid" and "The Brood", David Cronenberg goes further, straight to the brain, the most complex and important organ in the human body. Even if here, the treatment is more on the level: the good against the evil. Four years after Brian de Palma's "Carrie", dealing with telekinesis, Cronenberg introduces us to another paranormal phenomenon.
20 Seconds... YOU CAN'T BREATHE.
A 'Scanner' is a person with a particularity: a dysfunction of the synapses in his brain, also called 'telepathy', the ability to mentally penetrate anybody's mind, to possess it. Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside) is one of them, one of the most powerful, and the most ambitious. In some distance, he's able to make anybody do anything, included kill himself. During a meeting he gives a demonstration of his power, blowing up the head of another Scanner, one of the most famous 'gore' scenes ever shown on a wide screen. His ambition is take his revenge on the normal people who isolated the whole community of telepaths, who put it in some kind of a ghetto, and dominate the world. Only one person can do something about it: a Scanner as powerful as he is, maybe more. Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), a homeless, disturbed man, is the one, and Dr. Paul Russ (Patrick McGoohan) is, with Revok, the only one to know about it. After some time of effective investigation Vale manages to mentally penetrate and destroy the heart of a big computer which contains a very important program about a medicine, the Ephemerol, supposed to shut down the power of the Scanners but also to create other Scanners, through pregnant women. The psychological fight between Cameron and Darryl can begin, even when Darryl reveals Cameron that they're brothers, and that Dr. Paul Russ is their father, who gave some Ephemerol to his wife.
30 Seconds... YOU EXPLODE.
This astounding movie, now a classic masterpiece, was n° 1 in America when it was released and it's not a surprise. If the story is not very innovative, we can't say the same about the way it's used and treated. To the usual fight between the good and the evil is added a reflection about genetical experiments from medicine men, and their eventual consequences in our societies. The script, well written and told, is very intelligent, the art direction and 'gore' special effects are perfect and the acting is solid. It's the first popular film Cronenberg has made, and along with his next release, "Videodrome", it's still one of his best and most original and curious. A rare piece of intelligent and efficient 'gore' cinema.
Movie Review: Scanners
Summary: 5 Stars
SCANNERS is another excellent entry in David Cronenberg's long line of body horror themed films, this time centering on a telepathic spy (referred to as a scanner) that has been recruited by a secretive pharmaceuticals corporation in order to infiltrate and destroy a terrorist group of like-powered telepaths. Ironically, though there is very little gore, the film is best known for the blood splattered results of its few scanner battles. Rather than introducing computer imaging or visual FX for these sequences, Cronenberg uses a brilliant combination of drilling sound effects and bursting arteries to convey the sheer mental strength of his characters in the minds of his audience. This effect couldn't have been achieved without the slow and methodical scripting used to reinforce the raw power and fear generated by the characters' mutant anomalies. Overall, the film is very good, but there are two things that cripple it more than anything else. Stephen Lack's performance is dry and unnatural, making it difficult to identify with him as the lead. As with most other Cronenberg conceptions, SCANNERS is also a very cerebral film that focuses intently on its strong social commentary, which can make the plotting difficult to follow on the initial watch through and slows the pace down dramatically. Though the theme bears a striking resemblance to FIRESTARTER, this is likely just a coincidence as the two films are dissimilar in many ways. These two minor grievances are vastly outweighed by its sharp scripting and clear direction, and Cronenberg strikes another major success here. His obvious statements against designer drugs and man manipulating nature are much easier to decipher than in many of his other films. Michael Ironside also provides one of his strongest roles as the vengeful Darryl Revok, which remains to be his most memorable performance for many fans. While it isn't Cronenberg's strongest work, it is certainly one of his most recognizable, and it goes without saying that this is essential Horror viewing for all fans.
-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies
Movie Review: A Great Cult Classic!
Summary: 5 Stars
I read somewhere that there is an estimated 12 to 15 per cent of the world's population that have been born with some sort of natural psychic--or "psi"-- abilities. That's a whopping 720 million people at most. However the day to day abilities of most of these people are pretty lame compared to the small number of people in this movie who are super-psychics who have gained extraordinary telepathic and telekinetic abilities as the result of a birth defect due to a badly tested sleeping pill inadvertently given to pregnant mothers before they were born;
Daryl Revoc (played by a young Michael Ironside) tries to lead the scanners against the world, but finds opposition in a pair of scanners, one of which happens to be Revoc's brother. In some ways, Scanners is a bit of a cheesy sci-fi soap opera as Cronenberg unfortunately didn't have a big budget nor much time to write a better screenplay; due to a quirk in the way Canadian films were made, Cronenberg had only two weeks for pre-production and to come up with a script. When Scanners went into production the script wasn't even finished; some may say that it shows, but I disagree. Despite some minor flaws, Scanners is a cult classic with some truly fascinating, and shocking, special effects that makes for a mind blowing ending. This is a great sci-fi film, but the DVD is somewhat lacking in "special features." A commentary by Cronenberg and Michael Ironside would have made the DVD perfect.
Movie Review: Cronenberg's Money Shot
Summary: 5 Stars
The notion of the money shot is malleable. Scanners (1980) includes one that actually works to demarcate subtext. Here, the mind actually leaves the body, violently. Scanners' "...transitional edits serve as direct, amplifying links where the last moment of the first scene builds a question or expectation that is immediately answered or fulfilled in the next shot..." Filmplan International financed the production, budgeting more than $4 million toward the project. Originally called The Sensitives and then Telepathy 2000, Scanners had been in revision since the early 1970s, trumped by the personal vigor behind both Fast Company and The Brood. Like Crimes of the Future, Cronenberg institutionalizes the Cartesian, Consec housing the balance. The opening sequence, whereby a Scanner is hunted down, is guerilla filmmaking urban mall style, and is a reprise of Michael Anderson's Logan's Run (1976). The final shootout sequence whereby Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside) and Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) scan themselves to death happens to be the first film since Crimes of the Future to have a distinct notion of closure, the means to an end, culminating with an optimistic destruction of a character. Scanners is an attempt to make thought visible, the ramifications of which are stronger than the external. Our money shot, a proverbial augmentation: mind out of matter. Subsequence solidified Scanners as Cronenberg's first film to top the Variety box-office chart.