13 Nights of Shocktober: Scanners

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, for the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 7: Cronenberg Night

We're gonna do this the scanner way.

Scanners

“You’re a scanner but you don’t realize it,” the main character of Scanners is told about six minutes into the film. Writer-director David Cronenberg wastes no time in getting to the plot and action of his 1981 sci-fi horror thriller. Wasting no time may as well be the mantra of Scanners, which is famous for being the movie where someone’s head explodes in the first 10 minutes (it actually happens around 13 minutes into the movie). I don’t want to give the impression that Scanners is some sort of adrenaline filled special effects geek show. This is a well-paced thriller that combines science-fiction, action, and, of course, body horror that also manages to be a surprisingly believable story about warring groups of psychics. 

Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), a drifter suffering from constantly hearing voices, awakes in a strange room and is told by Dr. Ruth (Patrick McGoohan) that he is a scanner, a person able to connect with and affect others by means of telepathy. Dr. Ruth works for an organization called Consec that recruits scanners and develops a serum that suppresses the constant barrage of voices. It is unclear whether Consec is a private company or government organization, but it certainly has secrets and shady members. Dr. Ruth trains Vale to harness his ability to use against Daryll Revok (Michael Ironside), a rogue scanner out to build a scanner army and dominate non-scanning humans. Revok kills all scanners who will not join.

At a public but sparsely attended demonstration a scanner attempts to demonstrate proof of his telepathy by scanning people from the audience. Unfortunately, the volunteer is Revok, who, in one of the most famous moments in modern horror film history, makes the other scanner’s head explode. The exploding effect is done in full light in a single shot and in close up. Even if you’ve never seen the movie, you’ve likely seen this moment as a meme or gif around the internet to demonstrate that something is “mindblowing”. Yes, it is graphic and gross, but honestly, I think most viewers would be too in shock by what they’ve just seen to be grossed out. In a nice touch there is a reaction shot of Revok and even he is shocked by what just happened. It manages to catch me off guard at each viewing. In any case, there is nothing else like that in the movie, so if you can make it past that scene the rest of the violence is tame by comparison. On the other hand, if you are looking for a movie filled with impressive practical visual and make-up effects, you’ll probably be disappointed and should check out Cronenberg’s version of The Fly. 

As in many of Cronenberg’s films, the paranormal is presented as a new scientific finding. For a movie about telepathy and psychics, nothing feels mystical or magical. This is a film where scanning can be clearly demonstrated and studied in controlled environments and is in the realm of scientists instead of mystics. The only time scanning seems metaphysical is when Vale finds a commune of peaceful hippy scanners who use it as a means of mediation and communion. Yet, the overall attitude the film takes towards scanning and telepathy is not as the communion of souls or even consciousnesses. Dr. Ruth says flatly, “Telepathy is not mind reading. It is the direct linking of two nervous systems separated by space.” It is more important to the plot that Vale scans a computer system, instead of a person, for secret knowledge. It is clear that the metaphysical movement of the 1970’s influenced Cronenberg’s script. Another layer is added when you remember that his wife joined a cult in the 1970’s. As with Cronenberg movies like Rabid (where the Canadian government acknowledges and responds fairly well to a zombie outbreak), or Videodrome, or The Brood,  you don’t get a sense that the scanners are being concealed or covered up, even if the public doesn’t take notice. 

This is the kind of film that has lines of dialogue like: “I’m a Psycho-pharmacist by trade, specializing in the phenomenon of scanners” and “I scanned him. He’s for real.” I’ll admit this movie might not work for everyone. If you can buy the scenes of the scanners using their abilities, meaning scenes of the actors shaking their heads, making pained expressions, using overly expressive eyes, and intense face acting, then this will be an interesting, even thrilling movie. A psychic thriller as it were. If you can’t, I can’t blame you. There isn’t much to Stephen Lack’s performance as Vale. He comes across as a blank, but he is meant as the audience surrogate, learning as he goes along. Patrick McGoohan plays Dr. Ruth with a cold authority that is serious but not stern. We’re able to believe everything he tells us. The stand out is Michael Ironside as the evil scanner, Revok. Ironside plays a great villain but he’s also a great screen presence with his own kind of charm. He sells the intense facial expressions of scanning in a way that make those scenes and the whole movie compelling and tense. 

Scanners is streaming on HBOmax and the Criterion Channel.