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Overview

User Rating:
6.7/10   10,478 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 22% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
David Cronenberg
Writer:
David Cronenberg (written by)
Contact:
View company contact information for Scanners on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
14 January 1981 (USA) more
Genre:
Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller more
Tagline:
There are 4 billion people on earth. 237 are Scanners. They have the most terrifying powers ever created... and they are winning. more
Plot:
A scientist sends a man with extraordinary psychic powers to hunt others like him. full summary | full synopsis
Awards:
3 wins & 9 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(33 articles)
Event Report: AMPAS' Tribute to FX Legend Dick Smith
 (From Fangoria. 29 June 2009, 1:10 PM, PDT)

Assorted Code Red DVDetails...
 (From Fangoria. 25 June 2009, 11:17 PM, PDT)

User Comments:
"We'll do this the Scanner way...I'm going to suck your brain dry!" more

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
Jennifer O'Neill ... Kim Obrist
Stephen Lack ... Cameron Vale

Patrick McGoohan ... Dr. Paul Ruth
Lawrence Dane ... Braedon Keller

Michael Ironside ... Darryl Revok
Robert A. Silverman ... Benjamin Pierce (as Robert Silverman)
Lee Broker ... Security One
Mavor Moore ... Trevellyan
Adam Ludwig ... Arno Crostic
Murray Cruchley ... Programmer 1 (as Lee Murray)
Fred Doederlein ... Dieter Tautz
Géza Kovács ... Killer in Record Store (as Geza Kovacs)
Sonny Forbes ... Killer in Attic (as Sony Forbes)
Jérôme Tiberghien ... Killer in Attic (as Jerome Tiberghien)
Denis Lacroix ... Killer in Barn
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:
Telepathy 2000
more
Runtime:
103 min
Country:
Canada
Language:
English
Color:
Color (Eastmancolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
Filming Locations:
Montréal, Québec, Canada more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
A very early treatment from 1976, entitled "Telepathy 2000" takes place in the future, begins with the protagonist (who is named Harley Quinn) telepathically raping a woman in a subway, and was set as a spy movie. In this version, a company called Cytodyne Amalgamate was breeding evil Scanners to take over the world and the U.S. Government was employing good Scanners to stop them. more
Goofs:
Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the security escort guard is ordering his driver to slow down, he says "I'm going to kill you if you don't do it!". He is seen to mouth "stop" instead of "do it". more
Quotes:
Darryl Revok: This was a test campaign used in 1947 to market a new product. The product was a drug, a tranquilizer called 'Ephemerol'. It was aimed at pregnant women. If it had worked it would have been marketed all over North America. But the campaign failed and the drug failed, because it had a side effect on the unborn children. An invisible side effect.
Cameron: It created Scanners.
more
Movie Connections:
Featured in David Cronenberg: Long Live the New Flesh (1986) more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
24 out of 29 people found the following comment useful:-
"We'll do this the Scanner way...I'm going to suck your brain dry!", 5 September 2005
8/10
Author: Scott LeBrun from Winnipeg, Canada

Vagrant Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) is revealed to be a "Scanner", or a person with incredibly potent mental powers. He is mentored by Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan), who hopes to use him to ferret out rogue Scanner Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside, in his first substantial bad guy role), a psychopath with plans for world domination.

Another truly creepy Cronenberg work in which, George Romero-style, he combines a sense of intelligence - utilizing his recurring theme of biological aberration - with a heavy accent on visceral, blood and guts type horror. He gets an unnerving performance from Ironside as the evil maniac, and is aided not only by the repulsive yet undeniably compelling gore (the exploding head scene is the one most people probably think of in reference to this film, although the final showdown is equally gruesome) but an impressively ominous music score by Howard Shore.

Lack is awfully low-key as the hero, but it does fit the character. He starts out as a lone fringe dweller, and is only slowly adapting to the reality around him. Jennifer O'Neill, however, does little more than look beautiful as a new cohort who ends up assisting him in his mission. Frequent Cronenberg collaborator Robert Silverman is typically amusing in one of his standard eccentric roles.

"Scanners" is effective and entertaining, and one of the better Cronenberg films that I've seen.

8/10

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i loved this movie... wolferian_shadow
Seen this film 2 times 1984 + 2009 still crap :( karensastar73
TERRIBLE Acting violentworld
remake for 2009 rasko676
scanner factions malth
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