Scanners

 "I'm gonna suck your brain dry."



I'm a sucker for a good head explosion. I was quite taken aback with surprise when sometime back a few years ago, there were plenty of posters on the imdb horror board who thought Scanners was overrated and certainly not worthy of its reputation. Of course, you get the same shit with Romero's Dawn of the Dead, so this sort of criticism is to be expected. I watched a beat up VHS tape repeatedly in the 80s when I was a kid and fortunate enough to have my own VCR, Scanners of frequent viewing. I was astonished at the art of grotesque make-up effects and the plot of people, "telepathic curiosities", burdened with a power that can drive you insane if it isn't somehow tempered and controlled. I think of X-Men when pondering the human "anomalies" in Scanners, tormented outcasts within a society that doesn't understand what they are capable of or able to find sympathy for the struggles of everyday life to cope with this *gift*. A "derangement of the synapses" is a colorful phrase used by Dr. Ruth to explain the ESP those with "scanning" abilities have. Ruth wants to send a chosen scanner out to infiltrate an underground group of "freaks of nature", hoping to end their network so his company, Con Sec can reap the benefits of having them as test subjects (in the business of weapons, a human weapon, highly trained and under controls of another, could be of great use...)


"Two nervous systems directly linked, only separated by space", is a way Ruth explains what telepathy is for scanners, explaining away the oft-used throwaway belief that this gift is simply mind-reading.

"Now I know what it feels like to die."

Innocent scanners trying to cope with their cursed gift through harmonious sharing suffer in what is a war between multiple factions. Cameron Vale is a bum, a vagabond drifter found taking food from various plates in a mall, almost causing a woman to have a cerebral hemorrhage (she was belittling him to a colleague and he couldn't stop his scan of her...), brought into Con Sec, "indoctrinated" (more like taught about what he is and why he suffers so; Dr. Ruth "jump-starts" his slow enlightenment to the truth of his existence, why he is equipped with such a phenomenal (yet dangerous) ability), but the whole reason for his being is later discovered during a quest that takes him to Con Sec's (and scanners who don't join his *cause*) worst enemy, Darryl Revok.

Being able to telepathically link yourself to a computer because "both humans and computers have nervous systems" really left my mouth agape, even as a kid. It is still rather a profound idea, that man could force a computer via telepathic power to tell him secrets he doesn't have clearance for. What a grand scene. It logically doesn't sell to me, but as a set piece it is incredible. I mean, we see that Vale's powerful mind is so fierce that those on the other side of the Ripe Program he mentally pillages suffer the wrath of trying to wipe clean all the data, in turn, trying to kill him, a fireworks display of explosions (seeing all the computer machines just blowing to pieces is a stunner), men scattershot inside the computer room, computer components frying, a melting phone (and exploding phone booth!), and a gas station (car and gas pumps) going up in an inferno.

Biocarbon Amalgamate. A company once owned by Dr. Ruth (Patrick McGoohan, who titles himself a "psycho-pharmacist"; his argument is always on-point, articulating the importance of the scanner program, carefully laying out why the program is essential when others might want to just shut it down), now ran by Ravok, shipping a certain drug out, a diabolical master plan to create a race of scanners his ultimate goal, wanting Vale to join him side-by-side, not willing to take no for an answer. An army of telepaths who will bring the world to their knees, bowing before Ravok. Vale sees scanners differently, as ally Kim Obrist does, not as enemies against the world, but a race of people adjusting to it. So is the battle for supremacy, an effects showcase that never fails to impress me.

"We've won. We've won."

The work of Dick Smith and his make-up crew here is just ace. The swelling of the veins as they protrude from the flesh, blood bubbling as a fire sets forth beginning to engulf Vale who is giving up his body so he can gain access to Ravok's mind. Ravok's body intact yet the evil consciousness that once existed within eradicated, exterminated, the vermin that infested the shell is cleaned away and Vale can now, with Obrist's (the beautiful Jennifer O'Neill) help start anew. The eyeballs popping out, Vale pulling away the bulging,  pulsating, opening skin of the face, seemingly losing, gaining composure, eventually submitting his will as Ravok's eyes go white, his power failing, screams giving way as he must relinquish his body to a new host. It's masterful, the way a consciousness can leave from body making its home in another and, furthermore, replacing the scourge of good scanners everywhere.

It wasn't too long ago that a cable channel I once had, flix, played Scanners back-to-back with Shivers; that was a fun, lil double feature, a gap in time between both films showing Cronenberg's advancement in craft, although I'm sure you will read of the critique in regards to casting a boring actor in the lead. Stephen Lack won't ever be accused of overwhelming you with a charismatic presence (let's be honest, Michael Ironside is in the film, what, maybe a total of fifteen, twenty total minutes, tops, and overpowers Lack in the charisma category), but I think the point was that Lang didn't have malice, or menace, or the need to wreak havoc on the innocent, especially murder his own kind because they were considered weak due to not wanting to join his league of power-hungry scanners...that and the voices-suppressant alleviated a lot of the aggression. But he was always clearly projecting a subdued character, his face and performance conveying a calm intellect and  functioning as a cerebral man who deliberated about what was happening to him. His trust in Ruth, though, endangered him because, not only of Con Sec's less-than-admirable intentions for scanners, among the company was a mole/spy for Ravok, in Keller (Lawrence Dane, who is as cold-blooded as they come, all ice water in the veins, a definite soldier of Ravok who can point a gun at somebody and not flinch), hired to protect the interests of his employer, instead providing feedback to his true boss. Keller will kill, having no qualms in using whatever violent means to service Ravok against scanners or Con Sec, in order to see that Dr. Ruth fails.

Early in the film, there was a sequence of events concerning an artist named Benjamin Pearce (Robert Silverman, who looks the part of a mentally fragile artist, with a weird delivery in his responses to Vale's questions about Ravok that seems to fit the character's psychological state), a scanner who used art, sculpture, to keep a grip on his sanity, illustrating madness in its purest form, literally the architect of nightmares. He even has a giant head in his sculpting barn, containing an actual walkway in through the throat, with furniture inside, an obvious abode to convalesce and relax before and after the sessions where the dysfunction of his psychosis spill from his mind into a freakish art-form. His gallery scene, where Vale seeks out Pearce's studio agent, is way too brief, but Cronenberg gives us a taste of what thrives within the tortured mind of this troubled scanner.

Howard Shore's score is of an unnerving quality in that it gets under the skin, generating this mood of despair, a level of woe, in a way captivating and alluring in how it just punctuates the dire situation enveloping the scanners, secluded from society and pursued by a member of their own kind. It is haunting and beautiful, but also strange and sad...just like Pearce's mad art.

I think Scanners perseveres, admittedly, on a throttling punch (of one, two seconds) in the money shot of the head  of a delegate for Con Sec popping like a zit, thanks to Ravok showing the businessmen (from around North America), gathered sporadically inside a conference room--in attendance to learn a little about scanning--what kind of power he has at his disposal, and the money scene is the duel of powerful minds, The Brothers Ruth going at it for all the marbles. Because of the unsettling ambiance, the "sins of the father" theme that remains significant in storytelling, and the weight of the score that continues to unsettle, Scanners, I feel, does rise above just gory shock effects.