Scanners

For other uses, see Scanner (disambiguation).

Scanners
theatrical poster
Directed by	David Cronenberg
Produced by	Claude Héroux
Written by	David Cronenberg
Starring	Stephen Lack Jennifer O'Neill Michael Ironside Patrick McGoohan
Music by	Howard Shore
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Editing by	Ronald Sanders
Distributed by	Avco-Embassy Pictures
Release date(s)	14 January 1981 (1981-01-14) (US)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	English
Budget	$3,500,000 (est.)
Box office	$14,225,876

Scanners is a 1981 science-fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan. The film is about a corporation that attempts to use people with telepathic and telekinetic abilities for its own purposes.

Plot

Scanners are people with powerfully intense telepathic and telekinetic abilities. ConSec, a weaponry and security systems company, captures a homeless scanner named Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) at a shopping mall. Vale has been able to get by using his telepathy to make people eating near him allow him to steal some of their meals. Vale psychically overhears two women talking negatively about him, when suddenly one of them begins to convulse. Without knowing he is responsible for this, Vale attracts the attention of two ConSec agents, who shoot him with a tranquilizer dart and drag him away. He supposedly possesses tremendous scanner power, which ConSec wants to exploit, but he has become a derelict because he cannot cope with the overload of hearing others' thoughts. Meanwhile, ConSec's first Scanner is brutally murdered at a press conference by Scanner renegade Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside). Revok escapes, killing five people in the process.

Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan), the head of ConSec's Scanner Section, decides to infiltrate the Scanner Underworld by "converting" Vale and sending him to find Revok. At the same time, a new head of security, Braedon Keller (Lawrence Dane), joins ConSec. Ruth tells Vale that scanners can suppress their telepathic powers by injecting themselves with the drug Ephemerol and sends him to find Revok. The only lead is Benjamin Pierce (Robert A. Silverman), an artist and fellow scanner who tried to kill his family as a child.

After discovering Pierce's address in a gallery exhibiting his morbid sculptures, Vale goes to visit him and finds him living in isolation. Revok, intent on killing all Scanners unwilling to join his renegade faction, sends four assassins to dispatch Pierce. Pierce is shot and killed, and Vale flings the assassins into unconsciousness. As Pierce is dying, Vale scans his mind and obtains information on where to find other Scanners.

Vale meets Kim Obrist (Jennifer O'Neill) and other Scanners who have adjusted to their powers by forming a mutual telepathic circle. The party is ambushed by Revok's assassins, who are killed by Obrist. All scanners but Vale, Henmdricks and Obrist are killed trying to escape.

Vale infiltrates Revok's Ripe Program and finds out about a large quantity of Ephemerol being delivered. He and Obrist go back to ConSec to inform Ruth. They find out that Keller is a traitor. Keller kills Ruth by Revok's orders. Vale and Obrist escape by scanning the ConSec guards. Vale then infiltrates the Ripe Program computers through a payphone. In a last attempt to kill Vale, Keller orders a group of computer scientists to make the program self-destruct as Vale is plugged into it. The plan backfires and the laboratory explodes, killing Keller.

Vale and Obrist visit Dr. Frane, who has been prescribing Ephemerol to pregnant women. Obrist is shocked that an unborn baby has scanned her. As they leave his office, they are ambushed by Revok and shot with tranquilizer darts. When Vale wakes up, he is in Revok's office. Revok reveals that they are brothers and the sons of Dr Ruth, who has tested Ephemerol on their pregnant mother. Revok says all Scanners are the children of pregnant women who were prescribed Ephemerol and he plans to distribute Ephemerol and make an army of Scanners to take over the world. He invites Vale to join him but Vale refuses, saying that he is beginning to sound like Dr Ruth and that he could in some way be the "reincarnation" of Ruth. Vale picks up a paper weight and hits Revok. Revok retaliates, threatening to suck Vale's brain dry, and they engage in a battle through mind control. Vale proves no match for Revok, and is swiftly overpowered. Mutilated to the point of death, Vale makes a surprising move by setting himself alight, whilst directing one final gaze at Revok. The scene suddenly cuts to black as Revok screams.

Obrist wakes up later and finds Vale's incinerated body on the floor. Obrist psychically senses Vale's thoughts and calls out to him. Obrist discovers Revok is cowering in a corner, hidden under Vale's jacket. He reveals that he now has Vale's blue eyes (and is missing the characteristic scar between the eyebrows) and utters the last words of the film, "We've won" in Vale's voice (revealing that during their battle, Vale had switched his own mind with Revok's).

Cast

• Stephen Lack as Cameron Vale
• Michael Ironside as Darryl Revok
• Patrick McGoohan as Dr. Paul Ruth, psychopharmacist
• Jennifer O'Neill as Kim Obrist
• Lawrence Dane as Braedon Keller
• Robert A. Silverman as Benjamin Pierce
• Jock Brandis as Scanner in Attic
• Mavor Moore as Trevellyan
• Louis Del Grande as ConSec Scanner
• Christopher Britton as Hazmat Worker (cameo)(uncredited)
• William Hope as Hazmat Worker (cameo)(uncredited)

Production

Scene of the explosion of a ConSec scanner's head

The story is structured as a futuristic thriller, involving industrial espionage and intrigue, car chases, conspiracies, and shoot-outs (including a gruesome scanner duel between Vale and Revok at the end). It was the nearest thing to a conventional science fiction thriller Cronenberg had made up to that point, lacking the sexual content of Shivers, Rabid, or The Brood; it was also his most profitable film until The Fly six years later.

Because of the oddities of Canada's film financing structures at the time, it was necessary to begin shooting with only two weeks' pre-production work, before the screenplay had been completed, with Cronenberg writing the script between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. each morning throughout shooting. Since the production design team had no time to build sets, in some instances the crew had to drive around looking for things to shoot. As a result, Cronenberg has said, Scanners was a nightmare to make.^{[citation needed]}

Master make-up artist Dick Smith (The Exorcist, Sweet Home) provided the prosthetic make-up effects for the often-cited exploding head^[1] and the climactic scanner duel. The effect was made by filling a prosthetic head with bought livers and shooting the head from behind with a shotgun.

The use, marketing, and birth defects caused by the fictional drug Ephemerol are parallel the real-life drug thalidomide. Thalidomide was chiefly sold and prescribed during the late 1950s and early 1960s to pregnant women as a sedative, and its use led to severe malformations of children when taken during pregnancy.

Release

Scanners was released in the United States on January 14, 1981 by Embassy Pictures, and grossed $14,225,876 at the box office.^[2]

Reviews

Scanners maintains a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes,^[3] with positive reviews from Chicago Reader, the Austin Chronicle, and TV Guide.

Film critic Roger Ebert gave Scanners two out of four stars and wrote, "Scanners is so lockstep that we are basically reduced to watching the special effects, which are good but curiously abstract, because we don't much care about the people they're happening around".^[4] In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, "Had Mr. Cronenberg settled simply for horror, as John Carpenter did in his classic Halloween (though not in his not-so-classic The Fog), Scanners might have been a Grand Guignol treat. Instead he insists on turning the film into a mystery, and mystery demands eventual explanations that, when they come in Scanners, underline the movie's essential foolishness".^[5]

Awards and honors

Although Scanners was not nominated for any major awards, it did receive some recognition. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films gave the film its Saturn Award in 1981 for "Best International Film", and, in addition, the "Best Make-Up" award went to Dick Smith in a tie with Altered States. The film had also been nominated for "Best Special Effects."

Scanners also won "Best International Fantasy Film" from Fantasporto in 1983, and was nominated for eight Genie Awards in 1982, but did not win any.^[6][7]

Sequels and other adaptations

Scanners spawned sequels and a series of spin-offs; a remake was announced in 2007, but as of 2010 has not been put into production.^[8] None of these projects have involved Cronenberg as director.

Sequels

• Scanners II: The New Order (1991)
• Scanners III: The Takeover (1992)

Spin-offs

• Scanner Cop (1994)
• Scanners: The Showdown (a.k.a. Scanner Cop II) (1995)

Remake

In February 2007, Darren Lynn Bousman (director of Saw II, Saw III and Saw IV) was announced to direct a remake of the film, to be released by The Weinstein Company and Dimension Films. David S. Goyer was assigned to script the film. The movie was planned for an October 17, 2008 release, but the date came and went without further announcements, and all the parties involved have since moved on to other projects.^[8]

Television series

In July 2011 it was announced that Dimension Films are planning to adapt the franchise as a television series.^[9]

References

1. ^ Vincent Canby "Scanners" New York Times (14 January 1981); "Scanners" Variety (1 January 1981); "Scanners" Cinemafantastique
2. ^ "Scanners". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=scanners.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-08. 
3. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1018315-scanners/
4. ^ Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1981). "Scanners". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19810101/REVIEWS/101010364/1023. Retrieved 2009-01-08. 
5. ^ Canby, Vincent (January 14, 1981). "Scanners". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r=1&res=9C01E2DC103BF937A25752C0A967948260&partner=Rotten%20Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-01-08. 
6. ^ IMDB Awards
7. ^ Allmovie Awards
8. ^ ^{a b} "Scanners Remake Confirmed". The Plasma Pool. 2007-03-01. http://plasmapool.50webs.com/archive/archive_2007_03.html. Retrieved 2008-09-07. 
9. ^ Andreeva, Nellie. "Dimension To Develop 'Scanners' TV Series". Deadline. http://www.deadline.com/2011/07/dimension-to-develop-scanners-tv-series/. 

External links

• Scanners at the Internet Movie Database
• Scanners at the TCM Movie Database
• Scanners at AllRovi
• Scanners at Rotten Tomatoes
• Scanners at Box Office Mojo