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Scanners
theatrical poster
Directed byDavid Cronenberg
Written byDavid Cronenberg
Produced byClaude Héroux
StarringJennifer O'Neill
Stephen Lack
Michael Ironside
Patrick McGoohan
CinematographyMark Irwin
Edited byRonald Sanders
Music byHoward Shore
Distributed byAvco-Embassy Pictures
Release date
January 14, Template:Fy
Running time
103 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageTransclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead.
Budget$3,500,000 (est.)
Box office$14,225,876
For other uses, see Scanner.

Scanners is a Template:Fy science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg, with original music by Howard Shore 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 telepathic and telekinetic abilities. ConSec, a weaponry and security systems company, captures Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) at a shopping mall. 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 last Scanner is murdered at a press conference by Scanner renegade Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside). Revok escapes, killing five people.

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 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 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 Kim 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 computers self-destruct as Vale is plugged into it. The plan backfires and the laboratory explodes, killing Keller.

Vale and Kim visit Dr. Frane, who has been prescribing Ephemerol to pregnant women. Kim 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 tells him that they are brothers and that Scanners were the children of pregnant women who were prescribed Ephemerol. Revok reveals his plan to distribute Ephemerol and make an army of Scanners, inviting Vale to join him. Vale refuses and they battle through mind control. Vale's body is ravaged terribly by Revok's attacks to the point of burning, but before his body is destroyed completely, Vale takes aim at Revok and it is implied that he completely overwhelms him. Revok's eyes turn white and as he screams the scene suddenly cuts to black.

Kim wakes up later and finds Vale's incinerated body on the floor. She psychically senses Vale's thoughts and calls out to him. She 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. During their battle Vale was somehow able to transfer his consciousness, leaving Vale inside Revok's body and Revok dead in Vale's now-destroyed body. Nonetheless, it is also possible that Revok successfully scanned Vale and is trying to dupe Kim into believing otherwise.

Cast

File:Scanners screenshot.jpg
Renegade scanner Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside} is being "scanned" by a ConSec scanner (Louis Del Grande) using telepathic techniques. This confrontation leads to...
An editor has nominated the above file for discussion of its purpose and/or potential deletion. You are welcome to participate in the discussion and help reach a consensus.

Production

...an often-cited special effect from the film, the explosion of the 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 sci-fi 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 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 spectacular prosthetic make-up effects for the often-cited exploding head[1] and the climactic scanner duel.

The use, marketing, and birth defects caused by the fictional drug Ephemerol 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.

Reaction

Scanners was released on January 14, 1981, and grossed $14.2 million.[2]

Reviews

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".[3] 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".[4]

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.[5][6]

Sequels and other adaptations

Scanners spawned sequels and a series of spin-offs; a remake is being developed.[7] None of these projects have involved Cronenberg as director.

Sequels
Spin-offs
Remake

As of February 2007, Darren Lynn Bousman (director of Saw II, Saw III and Saw IV) will direct a remake of the film, which will be released by The Weinstein Company and Dimension Films. David S. Goyer, who wrote Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, will script the film. The movie was previously planned for an October 17, 2008, release but has since been delayed and the movie was pushed back to 2009.[7]

Physiology of a Scanner

Scanners are people born with a mutation, a peculiar derangement of the synapses which is called telepathy. When Scanners use their ability, it is referred to as "scanning."

From birth, a scanner picks up the surface "noise" of brains from all around them, like a cheap radio set—non–coherent thoughts, just a cacophony of information. Enough people makes the background "noise" intensely painful, and Scanners cannot even "cover their ears" so to speak. This constant "noise" causes a huge psychological pressure on the Scanner child, and most undiagnosed Scanners develop severe personality problems or simply go insane. Many Scanners suffer terrifying migraines throughout their lives. Most Scanners wind up in mental institutions. Rarely, when their unique "gifts" are recognized by some sympathetic soul, a Scanner can get treatment. With medication and proper training, Scanners can learn to control this mutation and employ it to truly wondrous effect, for good or ill.

The primary treatment for Scanners is the drug that created them, called Ephemerol (with later variations called "Eph-2", "Eph-3" and so on) that when administered, blocks the flow of telepathy. It is successfully used in Scanner treatment and control. When on a steady dose of Ephemerol, a Scanner is like any normal person.

Scanning is not merely mind-reading; it is a linking of two nervous systems across space. A trained Scanner can not only receive information from another nervous system, they can transmit as well. With this technique, a Scanner can create a link from his or her brain to another's heart, and cause it to beat faster or slow, increase blood pressure, paralyze limbs, and control basically any function of the body, but with a cold objectivity. Scanners can cause people to hemorrhage, have seizures, spasm wildly, even burst into flames. Grisly murder and mutilation come rather easily to a Scanner.

More difficult scanning techniques allow a Scanner to control entire human bodies like a puppeteer, or to induce positive effects on another, such as defibrillating a patient to stop a heart attack, or keeping a dying patient alive a few more minutes. These uses require great skill and subtlety, however, and are very rarely seen. Skilled Scanners can also forge a link with non-human systems in a similar way, most easily with complex machines such as a computer, though this a highly alien contact and can be dangerous. Most ironic of all, actual "mind-reading" that is, transferring information brain to brain is a rare and inexact use for scanning, and it is rarely used.

It is worth mentioning that Scanners cannot block or prevent other Scanners scanning them; however they can and often do retaliate.

Scanners possess an additional instinct that goes with their ability. When a Scanner locks onto another system, they seem reluctant or unable to break contact except through outside intervention. Breaking away seems to require a huge act of will. Some scanners have referred to this as a "rage" that comes from inside them. Any form of scanning is unpleasant to the victim, causing nausea and nosebleeds. Prolonged scanning will cause serious damage, and even death.

Most Scanners are sickly, neurotic, tormented people, often unbalanced if not insane, wracked by pain, abandoned by society or even criminal, hated and feared by "normals". When these traits are coupled with the ease with which their unusual talents can be used to kill, it is not surprising that Scanners are almost synonymous with mutilation and death.

  • The 1976-1984 sketch-comedy series SCTV included a recurring sketch titled Farm Film Report in which Big Jim McBob (Joe Flaherty) and Billy Sol Hurok (John Candy) satirized conventional film review programs, using a stereotypical redneck slant. Consistently, their favorite film was Scanners, with all other films compared to it and found wanting. The sketch routinely closed with the salute to the audience: "May the good Lord watch over you, and blow ya up real soon!"
  • In the 1992 movie Wayne's World, at one point Garth freezes while on TV, prompting an onlooker to comment, "Ever see that scene in Scanners when that dude's head blew up?"
  • In a 1993 episode, 511-"Gunslinger", of the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000, Dr. Clayton Forrester offers "The Scanner Planner" (which, of course, deals with blowing up people's heads a la Daryl Revok) as his end of the episode's "invention exchange." Dr. Forrester then proceeds to use the lessons taught in "The Scanner Planner" to blow up first Tom Servo's head, and then (by the end of the episode) TV's Frank's head. The cover of the planner features the iconic image of Michael Ironside as Daryl Revok, as he is shown during the film's climactic "Scanner battle".
  • The Norwegian ambient artist Biosphere used samples from the movie in the song "Decryption" on the 1994 album Patashnik.
  • In the 1995 movie Tommy Boy, Richard (David Spade) asks, "Did anyone see Scanners?" when he realizes the orders have been cancelled.
  • A 1996 episode of Saturday Night Live featured a sketch titled "Jimmy Tango's Fat-Busters." Jim Carrey poses as "Jimmy Tango," a formerly obese man who lost weight through the use of crystal meth and a vibrating heat bead suit. Jimmy interviews members of the crowd, some of whom have already started using his "program." One member (played by Will Ferrell) claims to be the devil, at which point Jimmy baits him into fighting with the phrase "talk is cheap, scan me," and the two begin having a Scanner battle, ending with Ferrell bleeding from the scalp and begging Jimmy to stop.
  • Rapper Phoenix Orion's 1998 album, Zimulated Experiencez, includes a song, "Scanners".
  • On "Weird Al" Yankovic's 2003 Poodle Hat album, the song "Couch Potato" mentions Scanners.
  • Scanners was referenced in the The Big Bang Theory episode "The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization", whereby the characters of Sheldon and Penny attempt, unsuccessfully, to make people's heads explode like in the film.
  • The Future Sound of London used samples from the movie for "Among Myselves" on the album Lifeforms.

Notes

Template:Refimprovesmall

  1. ^ Vincent Canby "Scanners" New York Times (14 January 1981); "Scanners" Variety (1 January 1981); "Scanners" Cinemafantastique
  2. ^ "Scanners". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2009-01-08. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1981). "Scanners". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2009-01-08. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ Canby, Vincent (January 14, 1981). "Scanners". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-08. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ IMDB Awards
  6. ^ Allmovie Awards
  7. ^ a b "Scanners Remake Confirmed". The Plasma Pool. 2007-03-01. Retrieved 2008-09-07.
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