Shawn Francis takes a look at the upcoming U.K blu ray releases of Scanners (1981) from director David Cronenberg and it's followup Scanners 2: The New Order (1991) from director Christian Duguay. Both films are being released as separate discs from the guys at Second Sight. Check out Shawn's words after the jump...
Written By Shawn Francis
This is certainly a
memory movie, but what memories I do have are vague and out of order.
Not often do I have that problem with one of these films. The first that comes to mind is remembering when it was on TV this one time. I was in the family room, I had the TV on, but I can’t recall if I was in high school or had already graduated. I remembering thinking, “Scanners?! Maybe, I should tape this.” Then deciding not to because it was airing on TV and it would be severely edited.
The other out of
place memory I have goes back to grade school, seventh or eighth
grade. I had this English teacher by the name of Mr. Urban (I think
his first name was Carl). I loved English and this teacher because he
was into science fiction. There was bulletin board he had up and I
remember seeing the newspaper ads for Scanners and then
Videodrome (1983) pinned to it. This was long before I had
ever seen them, and the imagery was so weird I couldn’t help but
stare at them whenever I was in his classroom.
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And, finally, I have
a vague recollection of seeing it on cable in the living room, late
one night, and thinking, “So that’s what this movie looks like
with all the gore put in.”
I believe this was
David Cronenberg’s fifth theatrical film, coming in behind 1979’s
The Brood. It deals with psychic individuals called
scanners. These scanners are telepathic, telekinetic and in a couple
of instances even exhibit pyrokinetic abilities, but aside from some
of these more easily classifiable abilities they have others that
aren’t so. The ability to psychically merge with a computer system
is one of them; another is being able to affect certain autonomic
functions of the human body like speeding up or slowing down
someone’s heartbeat. They can also cause actual damage to a
person’s brain with side effects ranging from convulsions to
unconsciousness. The ability to cause death with their abilities is
also within their grasp, and the side effects of one of these lethal
scans are quite explosive (i.e. full cranial explosion, full
explosion of ocular organs, conflagration of flesh, melting of flesh,
and the severe to obscene swelling of veins).
It’s not clear in
the movie how much the public knows about scanners, but make no
mistake they are aware of them, and to further educate the
masses a corporation called, ConSec, decides to hold a press
conference to show how unafraid we should all be of them.
A demonstration by a
scanner commences, a volunteer is needed, and a guy raises his hand
that looks an awful lot like actor Michael Ironside. Holy shit, it is
Michael Ironside. He’s playing, Darryl Revok, the psychopathic
leader of an underground Scanner community, and he has just
infiltrated this press conference. Objective: on one level to
graphically kill ConSec’s demonstration scanner in front of
everyone, on another. I assume, to show the public that a “new
storm is coming.”
Enter ConSec’s
head of Scanner Division, Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick MaGoohan). To combat
Revok, who is clearly one all-powerful scanner, he seeks out a
transient with equally powerful scanning abilities named, Cameron
Vale (Stephen Lack), whom he helps by injecting him with a drug
called, ephemerol, to quiet the uncontrollable psychic thoughts he
receives from anyone in his vicinity. He then trains Vale to focus
his abilities and sends him out into the underground to see if he can
stop Revok.
Along the way he
bumps into fellow scanner, Kim Obrist (Jennifer O’Neil), and
together they uncover the truth about ephemerol, Dr. Ruth, and who
Darryl Revok really is. And in traditional, bloody, early Cronenberg
fashion when the two scanners eventually come face-to-face and fall
into “psychic” battle, all those side effects I previously
mentioned are put on gruesome display for all to admire and cringe
at.
Second Sight’s
1080p 1.85:1 anamorphic remastering of this title is stunning. It’s
vivid like you’ve never seen it with equally spectacular colors
when the lethal scanning begins. I have to say it’s so clear
that during the final battle between Revok and Vale, some of the
prosthetic make-up can be seen for what it is. Specifically, the
border of the prosthetic on their faces, in a couple of shots, and
one for the veins popping out on Lack’s arm. The watch he wears
hides the seam on one arm, but you see it plainly on the other.
This release was
originally going to be region free, but at the last minute Second
Sight changed its coding to region B, probably, since rumors are
abound that Criterion will be putting out their own version some time
this year.
As for the audio
(DTS-HD 5.0 & PCM 2.0 stereo), I had no problem with it.
Extras are as
follows:“My Art Keeps Me Sane—Interview With Star Stephen Lack
(23:46): Before he starred in Scanners, Stephen’s primary
passion was painting, it still is. The impression I get of him from
this interview is that he’s kind of an odd person. Eccentric might
be the more proper term. His talk is nonetheless very entertaining as
he recalls his experiences on the movie. Did you know Cronenberg was
going to make Scanners before The Brood, but when his
wife got pregnant, he decided to immerse himself in that movie
instead, then afterwards when the opportunity arose he went back into
Scanner territory.
He and FX artist,
Dick Smith did not initially get along, and he fills us in on some
aspects of two of the most famous scenes in the movie—the head blow
and the final battle. Both went through reshoots after what was
initially filmed was deemed not working. He also drops other tidbits
like the Kim Orbist character was called, Flayvia, in a previous
version of the scrip; he got along very well with Patrick McGoohan,
and explains why he never made any more movies afterwards—he just
didn’t like the attention he was getting when Scanners was coming
out. He makes it clear he didn’t, and probably still doesn’t,
like the “Hollywood lifestyle.”
Anyone curious about
his art can look him up on stephenlackart.com.
“The Eye Of
Scanners—Interview With Cinematographer Mark Irwin” (15:11):
Irwin worked in hardcore porn before transitioning to what he
considers the softcore porn of Tanya’s Island (1980). One of
his recollections of working on Scanners is how he and Jennifer
O’Neil did not get along. She had at one point even tried to have
him fired. I get the impression O’Neil was not a very congenial
person. He also goes on to say that basically Scanners was filmed and
written on the fly. The money was in place before a script was ever
written and Cronenberg was writing it as they filmed it. And, as
expected, there’s even more talk about the movie’s infamous head
explosion, and how it was accomplished by a sawed off double barrel
shotgun.
“The Chaos Of
Scanners—Interview With Executive Pierre David” (13:42): Pierre
mentions he had an excellent working relationship with Cronenberg
throughout the three movies they collaborated on, and that Scanners
is the movie that put Cronenberg on the map. However, he does go on
to say the making of Scanners was absolute chaos. McGoohan was
a heavy drinker, Ironside was known to have a temper, and O’Neil
was demanding to work with. She didn’t even know she was doing a
horror movie, and demanded Cronenberg cut the copious head explosions
he had in his script down to what we now see in the film, but was
friendly as all hell when they were actually shooting. He also
reveals, before any of the sequels were made, he and Cronenberg tried
to set up a Scanners series at ABC. Oh, and finally, we get even more
talk about the infamous head blow, which is basically David
reiterating what Lack and Irwin said about it in their interviews.
“Exploding
Brains & Popping Veins—Interview With Makeup Effects Artist
Stephen Dupuis” (9:33): After Lack, Irwin and David touched
briefly on the effects, this interview is kind of anti-climactic. If
you’ve watched the others before this one, you’re not going to
learn anything new. So, if you keen on learning how the FX was done,
watch this one first.
“Bad Guy
Dane—Interview With Actor Lawrence Dane” (5:18): Nothing
earth shattering. Dane talks about his experience on the movie.
That’s about it.
Two sequels came
along in the early 90s—Scanners II: The New Order (’91) and
Scanners III: The Takeover (’92)—and as I understand it they
were filmed back to back. The New Order focuses on David
Kellum (David Hewlett), the son of the two characters from the first
film, Kim Obrist and Cameron Vale, as he migrates to the city to
start his life as a veterinarian.
ConSec, the “evil
corporation” that was at the center of events in the first film is
no longer the focus in The New Order, it’s now the Morse
Neurological Research Institute. And Dr. Morse (Tom Butler) has
manufactured a new kind of ephemerol known as Eph2, but it has a side
effect that renders any scanner who takes it an addict, eventually a
useless one at that, with death following a short time later.
We also follow a
Police Captain by the name of John Forrester (Yvon Ponton) who is set
on creating a New Order and he intends to use David Kellum to make
that happen. In the interim Dr. Morse has acquired a new scanner
patient, a psychopathic one called, Peter Drak (Raoul Trujillo), whom
he gives Eph2 to make him more manageable, but before he eventually
burns out and stored away with the other scanner burnouts, he’s
used as Forrester’s top thug.
It’s only a matter
of time before David sees Forrester for the villain that he is and is
forced to come face-to-face with Drac.
It’s not a perfect
sequel. In a perfect world Cronenberg would have come back and
focused the tale on Obrist and “new” Vale from the first film
while pushing the Scanner mythos forward. At least this movie is
connected to the first. The third has no connection as the filmmakers
simply chose to focus on other scanners.
The Scanners
franchise continued with 1994’s Scanner Cop and its 1995
sequel, Scanners: The Showdown (aka Scanner Cop 2, Scanners
IV: Scanner Cop).
The 1080p 1.85:1
anamorphic transfer (Region B) for The New Order blows away
the version Anchor Bay had released in the UK years ago. It’s
crisper and boasts better colors. Details are just as good as they
are on Second Sight’s first Scanners blu-ray. I didn’t review the
third movie, The Takeover, simply because I don’t like it.
But you can assume, since the transfers on the first two are
excellent, The Takeover’s is just as excellent as well.
Sadly there are no
extras on the disc, not even a trailer. But the pristine transfer
more than makes up for the lack of them, I think. As of this writing
U.S. distributor, Shout! Factory, has already announced a double
feature release of Scanners II and Scanners III for
later this year.
SCANNERS
SCANNERS II: THE NEW ORDER
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