Scanners Limited Edition Steelbook (1981)
David Cronenberg’s Scanners made a huge impression upon its initial cinema release on this once impressionable reviewer. From the iconic poster image of Michael Ironside to stills in horror film magazines of the key effects shot – the head exploding – everything about this elusive and out of reach flick (I was not of legal age at the time to see it at the cinema) was screaming at me that this was very much a film for me. Fortunately the advent of home video meant that I didn’t have to wait quite so long to delve into Cronenberg’s mind fuck of a movie. Unfortunately I knew it was one that I’d never get away with watching at home given my parents’ stance on films I was under-age for so it meant watching it with similarly aged friends from school whose parents were less discerning or didn’t have a clue we were doing so.
So there I was sat in a room full of younger teenagers desperately wanting them all to shut up so I could watch Scanners in peace. Instead the overbearing background hubbub consisted of my friends desperately trying to get their leg over with their female of choice before the house returned to being the domain of their parents. For a film sold on ‘shock’ Scanners was incredibly talky and rather more intellectual than one would have expected from a flick that’s major selling point was a man’s head exploding. Aside from THAT money shot the rest was lost on my collective of friends who had more pressing concerns to attend to rather than a film I was losing the fight to interest them in.
Time has been fabulously kind to Cronenberg’s Scanners, aside from some effects work towards the end, but then his film was more talkative and plot driven than sensationalistic and is far more dialogue heavy than one may expect from a genre piece at a time when ‘anything goes’ in the wake of Tom Savini’s contribution to splatterising the big screen and prior to ‘video nasties’ clogging up newspaper columns in the U.K.
Cameron Vale (Steven Lack now Stephen Lack) is a tormented homeless man when we first meet him forced to withdraw society by powers that he does not comprehend nor have the knack of harnessing their effect. This is soon evident when he turns his unseen ability upon an older woman whose conversation with her daughter he tunes in on and takes offence at her comments about him being ‘disgusting’. Vale invokes convulsions in the woman and thus alerts others to his presence – ConSec agents who shoot Vale with a tranquilliser dart and abduct him.
Vale awakes in a room whereby a number of unknown people filter in and sit down. All the while he writhes uncontrollably unable to shut out the inner thoughts of each as they clutter up his telepathic mind. Fortunately for Vale this is an experiment/test by psycho-pharmacist Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan) and this learned man has an explanation for Vale as to his unique abilities. Ruth is keen to fine tune Vale’s skills as there is a rather naughty renegade ‘scanner’ by the name of Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside) who has the monopoly of most of their kind and is looking to seize control of our world and Vale’s unknown status means that he can infiltrate Revok’s crowd. We known that Revok is a bad lad as by this point we have already borne witness to him causing someone’s head to blow up at a presentation.
With the constant stream of voices in his head numbed by a drug called Efemerol, provided by the rather helpful Dr. Ruth, Vale is on the case and soon joins a small group of scanners led by Kim Obrist (Jennifer O’Neill) to take on the powerful Revok and his entourage. In doing so Vale unearths some truths about his past leading to a fiery showdown with the bad guy.
Cronenberg cited this as the most frustrating film he had made as he had to complete it within a couple of months to allow the financing of the picture to qualify as a tax write-off. This meant having to write his script at the same time as shoot it. It also meant that the production team had no idea of the sets required so lacked the time to build them. To his credit the film never shows any duress in its plotting or scripting to indicate a rushed production.
Psychically exploding another person was hardly a new concept for grabbing audience’s attention, with Brian De Palma’s The Fury having done so three years earlier, and aside from the splatter at the start and the ‘what the fuck’s going on’ climax Cronenberg’s film is geared towards the concept rather than shock value.
This feels at odds for a man whose prior output included a tower block full of sex-mad tenants, a mother whose offspring killed anyone she had an issue with and a motorbike accident survivor who develops a fanny-like opening in her armpit. From here Cronenberg would go on to direct one of the better and arguably overlooked Stephen King adaptations with <The Dead Zone, after his excellent Videodrome, which felt like a natural progression from <b>Scanners</b> in respect that the plot rather than shock took precedent.
In the wake of THAT revelation at the climax of the previous year’s Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back it seemed like everyone wanted a similar ‘surprise’ to spice up their flick with Laurie finding out Michael is her brother in Halloween II and Scanners throwing a double whammy of family relationship reveals for the climax.
On the DVD release for John Carpenter’s The Fog he regularly quotes that because of Cronenberg’s Scanners he added additional scenes to his finished film to meet with audience’s consequent demand for gorier material. No meet feat John as your The Fog opened a year before Cronenberg unleashes his dangerous telepaths upon cinema audiences.
The extras are interesting albeit rather brief and it sounds like Jennifer O’Neal did herself no favours coming across as a bit of a silly cow on set according to the cinematographer. This is a fact backed up by her also pissing off co-star Patrick McGoohan which caused an additional head ache for Cronenberg. In respect of the picture and sound quality there is no noticeable improvement on Blu-Ray so it’s unlikely that they have been touched up.
Also released on Blu-Ray are the rather dismal sequels Scanners II: The New Order (1991) and Scanners III: The Takeover (1992) that are for franchise completists only. Cronenberg wasn’t too thrilled about the sequels and made it clear to Scanners’ executive producer Pierre David (as revealed in the extra The Chaos of Scanners nor was he impressed with spin-offs <Scanner Cop (1994) and Scanners: The Showdown (a.k.a. Scanner Cop II) (1995).
Ironside steals the film as bad guy Revok and does so with limited screen time and compensates for Stephen Lack’s, well, lack of any acting ability at all. Ironside commands your full attention burning up the screen every-time he pops into the plot. In fact the whole thing feels his hold throughout even when he is not on screen as the story is driven by his urge to meet his sibling. Patrick McGoohan lends gravitas to the outlandish concept and O’Neill looks delicious. Lack was not a trained actor and it shows – the same expression for every emotion but somehow this fits in with Cronenberg’s clinical cold vibe.
Cronenberg pitched himself as a unique voice and force in genre cinema, never unafraid of having his characters verbalise for whole scenes rather than focus on cheap thrills. His films, aside from The Fly, always feel incredibly cold and distant and lacking in any emotional warmth – although arguably that worked in favour of his later rather excellent Dead Ringers. Dropping the more sexual leanings of his prior work Scanners became the director’s most profitable film at the time. This limited edition steel-book release has decent extras albeit lacking anything from the director himself and for those yet to have a copy of one of Cronenberg’s finer cinematic moments this is an essential purchase.
