When the film is best known for a single scene, that could indicate two things. Its author might be a creative genius able to create something extraordinary. Or the rest of the film might be something quite unremarkable. Such dilemmas might await those that assess Scanners, 1981 Canadian science fiction horror film directed by David Cronenberg.
The protagonist, played by Stephen Lack, is Cameron Vale, homeless man troubled by endless stream of voices in his head. People around him sometimes suddenly get into horrible seizures and after one such incident he is snatched and tranquillised by mysterious people. He wakes up restrained in bed and meets Dr. Paul Ruth (played by Patick McGoohan), scientist who explains to Vale that he is a “Scanner”, a person with strong telepathic and telekinetic ability, which could be controlled through drug called “Ephemerol”. Ruth works for ConSec, corporation that recruits and trains “Scanners” in order to provide services for their wealthy and influential clients. Darryl Revok (played by Michael Ironside), extremely gifted and powerful “Scanner”, has gone rogue and declared war on ConSec, which he hopes to win with his own army of “Scanners”. Vale agrees to help Ruth and CanSec and begins to track down Revok. In the process he discovers underground society of “Scanners” that try to help each other dealing with consequences of their gift.
Scanners is known as the first Canadian film that had strong impact at US box-office this, consequently, made David Cronenberg into household name among cinephiles all over the world. This success should be credited to legendary scene in which “Scanner” (played by Louis Del Grande) demonstrates his abilities only to have his head explode. This display of modern make up and special effects created a lot of controversy about alleged bad taste and film content being too disturbing. Those critics, on the other hand, just handed Cronenberg free publicity. The scene in many ways epitomises Cronenberg’s style and themes. Most of his horror is body horror and there isn’t anything supernatural about it. The scene, just like the rest of the film, happens in clean, seemingly sanitised rooms and offices of a modern metropolis, and the cause of horror is medical or scientific experiment going wrong.
Cronenberg had somewhat bigger budget compared to his 1970s works and his cold, clinical style of directing continues to improve until getting perfected in 1980s. Yet, all this craft can’t compensate for some obvious problems with script and casting. Some of the characters and subplots aren’t fleshed out enough and the ending looks a little bit rushed. Even worse is choice of main actors. While British veteran Patrick McGoohan gives film certain gravitas in the role of protagonist’s trust-inspiring mentor, Stephen Lack is quite bland as the protagonist. Lack’s decision to stop acting and pursue much more successful career as a painter shouldn’t be so surprising based on this film. Jennifer O’Neill, one of the greatest stars of 1970s Hollywood, is completely wasted in her role of female “Scanner”. The impression is somewhat improved by Michael Ironside who makes great impact as sinister and formidable villain, one of first roles that would later his mark his career. In the end, exploding head was impressive enough to help Cronenberg, but not enough to help this film.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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