Scanners

Scanners (1981)

Runtime: 103 minutes

Directed by: David Cronenberg

Starring: Jennifer O'Neill, Steven Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane, Michael Ironside

From: Canadian Film Development Corporation/Filmplan International

It was about time I revisited this so I could review it for the first time. This was a good thing, as shown below:

This is another film I had seen before but that was many years ago. When TCM showed it last night as part of TCM Underground, I figured this was a great time to give it another spin. I am glad I did as it's definitely a film that is more than just a legendary .gif which has been popular on the Internet ever since the Internet first became popular.

In case some only know the movie for that .gif, Scanners are human beings-there are only 237 of them-who have great telepathic powers... this includes telekinesis and mind control. A homeless guy (Cameron Vale) is recruited by a security company to take out Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), a rogue who wants to unite all scanners (if they don't agree, they are killed) and for obvious reasons, this must be stopped.

There are definitely exciting moments (shootouts, conspiracies, espionage, and so forth) and that is contained in a story where on the surface it may sound “cool” to have such powers, but as it requires taking a drug to quiet the thoughts always rushing into your head... it's not something you want. It becomes sad once you hear how someone is born a scanner; I was able to feel bad for those poor people. The story is always enthralling and the score from James Horner is cool; at times it is dissonant and yet it fit what was on screen.

Stephen Lack does look like a young Oliver Reed; he is definitely not as good of an actor as Oliver Reed, but his acting style being off-kilter could be explained away by how all the scanners you see come off as pretty strange people. Indeed, some of the performances were iffy but Jennifer O'Neill did a nice job, and the definite highlight was Michael Ironside. Of course he played a great villain, and he always looked creepy as hell whenever he was on screen. While I understand those that don't dig the movie, I found it to be great entertainment and is not just some moments of bravura practical special effects.