Scanners (1981)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

David Cronenberg

Writer:

David Cronenberg (written by)

Release Date:

14 January 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

There are 4 billion people on earth. 237 are Scanners. They have the most terrifying powers ever created... and they are winning.

Plot:

A scientist sends a man with extraordinary psychic powers to hunt others like him.

Plot Keywords:

Psychic | Psychic Power | Doctor | Burned Body | Exploding Eye

Awards:

3 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

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

Also Known As:

Telepathy 2000

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Italy:VM14 | Finland:K-18 (original rating) (1981) | Portugal:M/16 | Germany:16 (re-rating) (2007) | West Germany:18 (original rating) | Finland:K-15 (DVD rating) | Brazil:16 | New Zealand:R16 | Australia:R | Canada:R | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Iceland:(Banned) | Norway:16 (cut) | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Montréal, Québec, Canada

Company:

Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)

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.

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".

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.

Movie Connections:

Featured in David Cronenberg: Long Live the New Flesh (1986)

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

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