Scanners

Rating:
Summary: Effemerol The Scanner Drug of Choice
Review: Movie Summary: Cameron Vale is jerked from his life as a mentally ill homeless man and whisked away to a corporate building. There he is given a drug that stops the voices in his head. He is told that he is not insane but he is one of only a few people with special mental powers. He is a Scanner. The corporation and its head scientist Doctor Paul Ruth clean up and attempt to train Cameron. They then send out an under prepared Cameron into the middle of a scanner war to track down a very powerful scanner who has plans to conquer the world.

My Opinion: Almost all the reviews for Scanners call it a Horror movie. I don't agree. To me Horror suggests movies like "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street". Scanners has some gore which more than likely is what gets it the horror label. I found it to be an Action Thriller with major SciFi elements. It's also a detective/spy type mystery film. It's all these elements together that make Scanners interesting and entertaining. The plot gets a little confusing in the middle as Cameron searches for other scanners, but our confusion mirrors Cameron's and is intentional. As things progress everything becomes clear. Stephen Lack is excellent as the weird scanner hero. I liked him enough to go look up what other films he has been in. Patrick McGoohan and Michael Ironside also give great performances. Overall this is a very entertaining movie that I will watch more than once and recommend to others.

DVD Quality: Video: Widescreen anamorphic - 1.85:1 Sound: DD 2.0 Mono. For at least the last quarter of the movie the sound does not sync up with the video. Extras: Trailer only. This is a bare bones DVD with Audio problems, but it is offered at a VHS price.

What You Should Do: Buy the DVD if you are a fan of this movie or of Horror/ScFi movies in general. It's not a high quality DVD release, but the price isn't going to make your head explode.

Related Movies To Check Out: Three Days of the Condor, Reanimator, Bride of Reanimator

Rating:
Summary: GREAT movie, BAD DVD
Review: This is one of Cronenburg's best efforts--imaginative and very entertaining. Unfortunately, the DVD edition is not-so-hot (the stars reflect the DVD quality, not the film itself). The last forth of the movie has a terrible soundtrack matching, such that the last 20 minutes is like watching a dubbed Kung-Fu movie. I suppose I am surprised, since matching the soundtrack and visual seems like a BASIC necessity, but this sloppy redering is a mis-match. Let us hope one day someone will give this movie the right treatment (Criterion?).

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for a GREAT movie, 3 for No thrills DVD
Review: Scanners is a David Cronenberg classic. It has a great story about how some of the disenfranchised of society are actually telepaths cursed with actually hearing your thoughts. These Scanners also have the horrifying ability to manipulate your bodily functions from a simple nose breed to blowing out your veins to exploding your head ( One of the 2 most famous head explosions in horror - other is Maniac ). Anyway it seems that one Scanner is vying for world domination and a security corporation wants to stop him. They seemingly recruit a homeless scanner and turn him into an agent of good versus the evil scanners. The rest of the movie I won't spoil but it is a great one. The final confrontation between good vs. evil is outstanding. Although it isn't full of gore, it does have a couple of very gory scenes so it isn't for the squeamish.

Rating:
Summary: Classic "thinking man's horror"
Review: David Cronenberg, intellectual and theorist of the gore/splatter scene, broke some serious ground with this spare but involving fantasy. A sub-race of humanity called "scanners" has emerged in the past couple of decades -- people who can both read and influence minds, but who are often social outcasts due to their condition being as much an affliction as a gift. In the opening scenes, one of these outcast scanners (Stephen Lack, appropriately whey-faced) takes revenge on a woman who disparages him at a shopping mall. Moments later, he's hunted down and tranquilized by agents of a doctor (Patrick McGoohan, excellent as always) who wants to help him master his power.

As with most Cronenberg movies, there are wheels within wheels, and we soon learn that there are scanners who have mastered their powers quite well, thank you, and who are also bent on taking control rather than being controlled. One such scanner, Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside, in a role he delineates with the whites of his eyes and bulging forehead veins), literally blows the head off of one of his opponents, in the movie's most infamous scene. Eventually the two collide, of course.

The film's slightly dated -- especially the scenes with the computer center -- but it's still absorbing and shows some real signs of genius. I especially liked the fake "Life" magazine ad design, and the scene with the scanner sculptor, building giant plaster heads who says "My art keeps me sane." (In what has to be a symbolic touch, the heads are later blown to pieces by assassins.) Things like that make "Scanners" more than just a splatter movie with a brain; it's got a soul, too.

Cronenberg would later go on to make some of the best, most probing horror and fantasy movies around: "Videodrome," "The Dead Zone," "The Fly" (a remake which actually outdoes the original), and "Dead Ringers." "Scanners" was a big hit when it was released, and made him that much closer to being a household name. He's still doing his own thing, as "eXistenZ" proves, and we're all the richer for it.

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatist Horror movies of the 80's.
Review: This 1981 Canadian made Sci-fi Horror thriller is about people with telepathic and telekinetic Powers called " Scanners", they also use their powers to make people explode. The Story deals with a Young Scanner named " Cameron Vale" ( Stephen Lack) who joins with a Scientist ( Patrick Mcgoohan of Braveheart) and a Woman Scanner to stop a Mad Scanner named " Daryl Revok" ( Michael Ironside of V and Starship Troopers) before he sells a deadly drug that will make a army of evil Scanners.

Intelligent, Exciting, fascinating and Great all the way!!! this film became one of the highest grossers of 1981 in Canada and USA, proved that not all Horror can be European or Hollywood. I saw it three years ago on Video and loved it, then i bought this movie for my collection. it's also known the infamous Gore such as the Exploding head scene, it's a must see Horror/ Sci-fi film for thinkers or film-goers cause i guarantee it will blow your mind!!! ( Literally, ha ha ha ha).

Recommendations: Akira, Firestarter, Carrie, Making Contact, Total Recall, The Matrix, The Stuff, Day of the Dead, The Evil Dead, Robocop, and The Terminator.

Rating:
Summary: Classic from David "king of venereal gore" Cronenberg
Review: Unfortunately I cannot comment on the DVD, as I have yet to get it. Although I am happy that it is finally getting the DVD Treatment!

Just saw this 1981 classic from the Cronenberg. Very scary and has some of those eecky scenes that the director is well-renowned for. I just thought after watching this film that this movie was so ahead of its time. I was born in 1981 and saw this today afternoon in 2001 and still enjoyed it immensely. Clever, gory, great score from Howard Shore (a little melodramtic at times but excusable considering the age of the film) and "Scanners" has Micheal Ironside in it as the most powerful Scanner of them all.

There some real memorable scenes in the film especially the one in the conference room when a scanning demo goes all wrong and the last act. I have seen "Scanner Cop," the spin-off of the original, and thought that film to be very good too. Highly recommended. Just not right for the squeamish...!

Rating:
Summary: C'Mon MGM How's About A DVD Version....,
Review: Like the last guy who wrote on here, I really think that this film would be great on DVD, particularly as my video copy is currently having death throes and I want to see it in widescreen. So MGM get yourselves in gear!!

Anywho, to repeat the plot (in short terms), prototype medicine leads to the creation of telepathics (it pretty much says this on the box so I am not spoiling) and there are good and bad ones. Of course the good will have to face off with the bad with pretty explosive results.

This film is my favourite Cronenberg work, as it combines his weird ideas with more plot than usual. I liked Videodrome a lot as well, but this one holds together a little bit more. The visuals are nice (abstract canadian architecture) and the ideas are awesome (shady drug companies, links between madness and art etc), actually the central idea of the "Bad Medicine" probably has some basis in the Thalidomide cases of defect births. Hmmmm. Anyways people have discussed the merits of exploding heads et al enough here. I really just want a DVD realease of this film and it seems odd that MGM haven't when they have put out so many others.

Rating:
Summary: THIS MOVIE SCREAMS FOR A DVD RELEASE!!
Review: Can I get a witness!! This movie was the first David Cronenburg film I ever saw. When I saw this the first time, I was 11 and it completely enthralled me! Before this movie, I had never seen a movie with so much Twilight Zonish quality with a story that could upsell low budget movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th. I see much of Cronenburgs work has been successfully transferred to DVD, except this gem? What's up with that! I just viewed the VHS version and unfortunately, there is no widescreen version of this film. I would love to get a better sound quality version of this too. Hopefully, studios will get the hint and release a deluxe special edition of this movie on DVD with lots of extras! As far as the VHS version, it's so so. For the sake of viewing a really great piece of sci-fi, this movie is one not to pass up!

Rating:
Summary: Is medecine really bad?
Review: Scanners is a masterpiece and Cronenberg will never get down from this top. A wild medical experimentation by a doctor causes a genetic mutation. The mutants have a special power. The doctor wants to destroy them, particularly his first son who is the leader of the band, with the help of his second son, the filiation being unknown of the latter. But the band is a lot more organised than a bunch of a-social individuals. The elder son is trying to multiply the scanners by using a network of greedy doctors. The final confrontation is a total success for the elder son. At the end of the film there is no hope : the scanners will conquer and dominate the world. What is interesting in the film is the high level of controled suspense and the very good make-up special effects. There is never a moment of release or absence of tension. It starts at the very beginning and will never end. But here Cronenberg is absolutely dark and pessimistic because there is no escape, no hope, not even the hope that the two brothers would mutually destroy each other. It also shows how greed for money and power is manipulating some people so much that they are ready to do anything to capture that money and that power and retain it. So it is also pessimistic on the side of man's nature. Even women are nearly completely absent and hence there is no hope on that side either. It is a man man's world and nothing can stand in the way of those men and nobody will stand alive in their wake. It is just a brutal reality that will take over the world. That's why the film leaves suspense behind and becomes pure horror. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universites II and IX.

Rating:
Summary: Neat exploding heads can't save this movie
Review: A great idea, people with the ability to telepathicaly killothers in violent and "explosive" ways. No acting to beseen, no good dynamic, plot twists, and definetly no plot. Worth your time to see heads explode and people combust into flames but not a movie to buy and watch again and again.