Canadian Horror Marathon: Scanners (1981)



There’s a uniqueness to a David Cronenberg movie that doesn’t exist in the movies of any other director.  It’s an underlying normality and emotional core that gets surrounded by the strange and surreal plot unfolding before your eyes.  This exact combination isn’t provided by any other director.  Scanners falls right into this description.

Scanners was a 1981 movie about one telepath sent out to stop another telepath from doing telepathic things.  That is the best way that I know how to summarize the movie.  It’s part science fiction, part action, and part body horror.  That’s a common mixture for a Cronenberg movie, I think.

I don’t remember any of the actors’ names except for Michael Ironside.  Michael Ironside was great as the antagonist of the movie.  Then again, Michael Ironside is great in pretty much anything he does.  He’s great in Starship Troopers.  He’s great in Total Recall.  He’s great in Scanners.  See how that works?

There are some very good visual moments in this film, as there are with any Cronenberg movie.   In Scanners, a man is attempting a brain scan but instead has his own head explode.  The practical effects used help to make the look of this effect much more jarring.  The image will definitely stick with you after you watch the movie, no matter how much you try and get it out of your mind.

What really needs to be talked about is the plot, however.  To be completely honest, the movie did not have my full attention.  It wasn’t for lack of trying.  It was because of an incoming hurricane, family stuff, and anything else that was happening while I tried to watch it.  It’s not for the movie being bad.  It’s not bad.  It’s a damn good movie.  Cronenberg’s style might have also added to that.  Most of his eighties movies tended to blend some realism with stirring imagery and surrealism.  That means that the story, though fairly straight-forward, would have elements of crazy.  Scanners had that mixture.  It was a typical good versus bad story that involved people being able to link minds, or use the power of their minds to harm others.  This would lead to insanity, and the movie seems to supply insanity.

In the end, I very much enjoyed Scanners.  It will definitely require a second viewing, which I feel some of Cronenberg’s other movies do (The Fly, Videodrome).  That is what a good movie asks for.  They deserve repeated viewings.

This also brings the Canadian Horror Marathon to an end.  In the upcoming days, the awards for the marathon will show up.  Also, the Mustache Marathon will begin for the second year.  The lineup looks interesting.  Just you wait for those.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

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