Cronenberg's first breakout film that really showed his talent for art and SF. I think this is the first Cronenberg film I ever seen, but that was years ago, and after Fly (1986) I decided to look for Scanners again. The film did not have budget that big, but it was enough for Cronenberg to show his bizarre, violent artistic world. This film also holds one of the most memorable scenes ever, I bet you know what scene I'm talking about.
Someone can easily say that this is a "typical" Cronenberg film, well for most of us, it is and it has a good SF element. Well, this time Cronenberg shows us the world of paranormal, telekinetic abilities of mutated individuals, which is used for controlling of other people, their will to be exact, or even destroy them. Most of those mutants are controlled by scientist, except for one, the most powerful called Revok (played by always awesome and badass Michael Ironside, the man with the cool, deep voice himself), who has his own agenda - to find his brother Cameron (played by Stephen Lack), who is also a Scanner, not aware of his scanning potential. But, he was found by scientist and they trained him to control himself and to find Revok himself. From Cronenberg you can always expect good, weird story, well written script, actors and cold, quiet and somewhat suspicious ambient and atmosphere. The film holds (for that time) pretty spectacular (well, for someone disturbing special effects), and because of that I think that Cronenberg is neglecting a logical credibility of the story, but no matter, still everything else compensate that neglecting. It's a great movie and must see.
Someone can easily say that this is a "typical" Cronenberg film, well for most of us, it is and it has a good SF element. Well, this time Cronenberg shows us the world of paranormal, telekinetic abilities of mutated individuals, which is used for controlling of other people, their will to be exact, or even destroy them. Most of those mutants are controlled by scientist, except for one, the most powerful called Revok (played by always awesome and badass Michael Ironside, the man with the cool, deep voice himself), who has his own agenda - to find his brother Cameron (played by Stephen Lack), who is also a Scanner, not aware of his scanning potential. But, he was found by scientist and they trained him to control himself and to find Revok himself. From Cronenberg you can always expect good, weird story, well written script, actors and cold, quiet and somewhat suspicious ambient and atmosphere. The film holds (for that time) pretty spectacular (well, for someone disturbing special effects), and because of that I think that Cronenberg is neglecting a logical credibility of the story, but no matter, still everything else compensate that neglecting. It's a great movie and must see.