• Written and directed by David Cronenberg
• Starring
  • Patrick McGoohan
  • Stephen Lack
  • Michael Ironside
  • Lawrence Dane
  • Jennifer O’Neill

David Cronenberg has always been a filmmaker whose work straddles the arenas of arthouse and genre cinema, and he’s been accepted in both camps — accepted, but maybe looked at askance. Unlike most genre filmmakers, he’s not afraid of making uncomfortable movies; and perhaps in contrast to most arthouse directors, he’s adept at adding a speculative, cerebral element to his films. And of course, that last comment is an obvious double entendre when talking about Scanners.

Our protagonist is thirty-something Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), introduced to us as a disturbed homeless man eating leftovers in a mall food court. He’s got good reason to be less socially adept; he can hear the overlapping thoughts of those around him, to the point that he has trouble forming a separate identity of his own. And when people starts thinking about him, he starts thinking back about them, and then… Well, the woman who turned up her nose at his personal hygiene may think twice about uncharitable thoughts, if they ever stop her convulsions.

“I prefer ‘Avenging Science Godfather,’ if you please.”

Captured by shadowy men in trenchcoats (uncool tan trenchcoats, I should point out), Cameron is brought into the guardianship of (snicker) Dr. Ruth (Patrick McGoohan), a slouching psycho-pharmacologist with a leonine head of hair that would not be out of place in the animated Lord of the Rings movie. Dr. Ruth’s (giggle) motivations are an uneasy mix of the altruistic and the machaeavellian; he’s dedicated himself, he tells Cameron, to helping “scanners” — those rare individuals with mixed-blessing abilities like his.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ruth’s (snort) employer, shadowing security contractor ConSec (thus the name) is arranging a demonstrating of the tactical uses of scanning for a collection of VIPs. Their tame scanner (Louis del Grande) asks for volunteers to demonstrate his mind reading; unfortunately, the volunteer who comes forward is actually Derryl Revok (Michael Ironside), an EEVil scanner who exhibits the full destructive limits of his abilities mostly to provide us with one of the most famous cinematic splatter scenes of the 1980s, the infamous exploding head. (Those who were raised on Canadian television won’t mind one little bit seeing Louis “Seeing Things” del Grande’s cranium pop like a balloon. Now, where’s that Bruno Gerussi?)

Anyway. Since one of the casualties of Revok’s escape was ConSec’s head of security (say, wouldn’t that be “HeadSec”?), there’s a little emergency meeting of the board of directors, with Braedon Keller (Lawrence Dane) filling the empty seat and promptly declaring his intention to jettison their scanner program — especially because their single scanner just got cleaned up with a WetVac. But Dr. Ruth (mmffph) argues that, since Revok’s hot to get them, they need to fight back. Furthermore, the reason that their scanner division is so sparse is because Revok is organizing a “scanner underground” among the two hundred-odd scanners in the world, making them join him or die. Dr. Ruth (I’m sorry! I can’t help it!) intends to get Cameron whipped into shape and send him out as an infiltrator in Revok’s group.

By special act of Congress, every review of Scanners must contain this screencap.

Cameron proves to be a quick study to things like personal grooming, manners, and basic intelligence; he also responds well to Dr. Ruth’s (…must… control… giggles…) exercises in focusing and restraining his powers, thanks in part to the drug Ephemerol, which helps drown out the voices in Cameron’s head but also dulls the edge of his scanning. Horrified by the idea that he could be next, Cameron takes on the case.

Following the trail of the few known live scanners, Cameron finds that Revok’s posse isn’t the only one out there; some few other scanners have formed a more benign circle of “scanner hippies” who like to link minds and just, you know, be. Unfortunately, guess which side has armed assassins? Yup, Revok’s. In short order, Cameron soon finds himself alone with one other scanner survivor, Kim (Jennifer O’Neill), as they try to backtrack Revok’s connections to a traitor within ConSec itself, and discover a plot to spread Ephemerol to a population of pregnant women and induce another huge generation of scanners.

“Thanks. I’m thinking of calling it ‘Big-Ass Head.’”

What marks the boundary between movie entertainment and movie art is that, on top of the normal production excellence, the art movie has subtext — and believe me, Scanners has tons of that. Even before the climactic reveal of where scanners come from, there are plenty of subliminal indications that scanner abilities aren’t exactly a natural phenomenon, but are a consequence of a scientificized society: The relentless electronica sound effects while scanning powers are being used, the sterile mechanical lustre of the halls of ConSec… these audiovisual images contrast with those of the scanners who are simply trying to live a decent life in earthier, more sedate surroundings.

There are also plenty of signifiers of a subtext of intergenerational mistrust; the scanners are all “baby boomers,” lost and unfocused, with greater ability than their parent generation but great difficulty finding their own identity. You thought that “scanner hippy” jab was simply me looking for a cheap gag? Hardly. The scanners are very much a part of their generation: either dropping out of their parents’ society in search of an elusive peace, like Kim’s group, or trying to take over, like Revok.

And with the final revelation that scanners were accidentally created by Ephemerol, which was marketed as a “morning sickness” remedy by Dr. Ruth’s company (yeah, yea, it’s a spoiler — and Rosebud’s a sled, okay?), that lays the blame directly at the feet of Dr. Ruth (snicker) and his generation. Especially when it’s finally revealed that both Revok and Cameron are Ruth’s sons, not just metaphorically but biologically. (And Soylent Green is people. Calm down.)

A sign of being scanned — or the effect of his own talent vacuum?

Something truly noteworthy here is Michael Ironside in his first of many starring genre roles: dear heavens, who knew the man could act? I’m not talking about the jaw-grinding scanning routine, although that’s very effective; I’m talking about footage shown us of a 22-year-old Darryl Revok who had just drilled a hole in his head to “let the other people out.” That added little bit of character, and the acting ability shown therein, elevates the “wanna take over the world” routine above most genre fare.

As an equal and opposite flaw, though, Stephen Lack’s incredibly absent acting ability and negative personal charisma threaten to suck the entire movie into a black hole. Despite playing a man with phenomenal unwanted abilities, and with the mental perturbations brought on by an asocial life on the edges of society, Lack delivers his lines with all of the emotive power of a lampshade. A particularly bland lampshade. (And his uncanny physical resemblance to David Schwimmer just doesn’t help.)

Otherwise, the main demerit of the movie is that it’s glacially slow; script pacing, music, and lackadaisical editing threaten to anesthetize the audience once the shock of the cranial explosion has warn off. But I suppose that’s to be expected — it’s a Canadian movie, and that’s how they make movies up there.

Maybe he’s born with it; maybe it’s Maybelline.

The sequels (of which there have been four, plus an impending remake of the original) haven’t exactly gone for subtlety — the first two were almost identical, focusing on the fascist possibilities of scanner powers, to the point that it was almost a relief when the latter two became straightforward direct-to-video sci-fi actioners. The original was rough around the edges (go ahead, tell me that Cronenberg didn’t roll credits where he did simply because he didn’t know how to end it), but it’s still a landmark in the development of both cerebral “arthouse sci-fi,” and of the splatter films of the ’80s.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 19
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 12 (not counting the head)
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0