When he acquires a different kind of show for his station, a sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a terrifying new reality.
A young woman develops a taste for human blood after undergoing experimental plastic surgery, and her victims turn into rabid, blood-thirsty zombies who proceed to infect others, which turns into a city-wide epidemic.
After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife, and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.
The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.
Director:
David Cronenberg
Stars:
Ralph Fiennes,
Miranda Richardson,
Gabriel Byrne
Darryl Revok is the most powerful of all the scanners, and is the head of the underground scanner movement for world domination. Scanners have great psychic power, strong enough to control minds; they can inflict enormous pain/damage on their victims. Doctor Paul Ruth finds a scanner that Revok hasn't, and converts him to their cause - to destroy the underground movement.Written by
Paul Reynolds <pauljr@innotts.co.uk>
In an interview with Film Comment, Stephen Lack recalled feeling under-the-gun during one of his first scenes on set. "There we were, the first day of Scanners and they had me get into this 18-wheel truck with four gearshift levers and have me drive into the shot. It was horrifying. I never drove such a thing and I was pretty disoriented," he explained. "We were set up on a feeder road to the highway, and all the camera crew and staff were there, and some car on the highway slowed down to gawk-and a truck on the highway rammed them from behind. There was a death and sirens, and the whole crew jumped over the storm fence to help out. I was given a slight reprieve of an hour to figure out the gears." See more »
Goofs
Dieter Tautz cries out during Cameron's scanning of him, but his lips don't move. See more »
Quotes
Cameron Vale:
Then what did you need Keller for?
Darryl Revok:
ConSec had hardware. It had contacts. Keller could see the future.
Cameron Vale:
The future? You murdered the future.
Darryl Revok:
That's negative, Cam. Defeatist. Disappoints me to hear you talk that way. You're starting to sound like them.
Darryl Revok:
[continues talking while walking through the room. Cameron takes a stone paperweight in his hands from Revok's desk and observes it]
There's a whole generation of scanners soldiers just a few months away from being born. We'll find them. Train them ...
[...] See more »
Crazy Credits
Credits scroll like words on the CONSEC computer monitor. See more »
Alternate Versions
In the scene when Cameron Vale is in Revok's factory, he checks the computer. When we see the monitor, there's a green frame in this version and there's also a green frame at the closing credits. This version appeared on the VHS distributed by MOKÉP. See more »
A common aspect of most great films is that they take time to sink in. Into their audience and into culture. Upon seeing a good film an audience will often know whether they've liked it or not, but what they won't know is quite why. That is what takes time to sink in. As a film is thought about and even seen again once or twice does it become great. It is the basic test of time that all classics must pass in order to achieve that honored status. The term "instant-classic" has always been a marketing gimmick since if you can take in the whole of a film instantly it means that it didn't offer a lot and isn't as good as it could have been.
David Cronenberg's films are those films that you have to see more than once. Many people today don't get that that's where the fun of a good story is: it's not a quick fix of special effects, but rather something that grows on you. Even if you end up not liking the film, the thinking about it and possibly re-seeing it will tell you WHY. Today many people don't care to go that far and just settle on eye candy. Nothing is wrong with eye candy, but when your mother told you to eat your vegetables, she wasn't just talking about food.
"Scanners" is not just a great film that was ahead of its time when it came out, it is a great director's first conceptual masterpiece. Cronenberg showed much promise with his early works, but he was clearly on the learning curve. With "Scanners" he make use of bigger sets, more expansive special effects all while presenting a frightening aspect of ever developing computer technology in an interesting story. The kicker is that most of what the film presents is relevant in more ways than one to today's world. Maybe not quite word for word, but this film is quite prophetic and a science fiction classic. --- 9/10
Rated R for violence and gore. Ages 13+
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A common aspect of most great films is that they take time to sink in. Into their audience and into culture. Upon seeing a good film an audience will often know whether they've liked it or not, but what they won't know is quite why. That is what takes time to sink in. As a film is thought about and even seen again once or twice does it become great. It is the basic test of time that all classics must pass in order to achieve that honored status. The term "instant-classic" has always been a marketing gimmick since if you can take in the whole of a film instantly it means that it didn't offer a lot and isn't as good as it could have been.
David Cronenberg's films are those films that you have to see more than once. Many people today don't get that that's where the fun of a good story is: it's not a quick fix of special effects, but rather something that grows on you. Even if you end up not liking the film, the thinking about it and possibly re-seeing it will tell you WHY. Today many people don't care to go that far and just settle on eye candy. Nothing is wrong with eye candy, but when your mother told you to eat your vegetables, she wasn't just talking about food.
"Scanners" is not just a great film that was ahead of its time when it came out, it is a great director's first conceptual masterpiece. Cronenberg showed much promise with his early works, but he was clearly on the learning curve. With "Scanners" he make use of bigger sets, more expansive special effects all while presenting a frightening aspect of ever developing computer technology in an interesting story. The kicker is that most of what the film presents is relevant in more ways than one to today's world. Maybe not quite word for word, but this film is quite prophetic and a science fiction classic. --- 9/10
Rated R for violence and gore. Ages 13+