PopHorror Let's Get Scared
One reason I love eighties horror is that there were no rules; it was a “wild west” scenario. There were a lot of stories to be told. Sadly, most movies that attracted a great deal of attention often had to resort to making ten installments, driving us into boredom. We became spoiled with amazing ideas; the movie rental store still thrived. David Cronenberg’s Scanners showed the best of eighties FX, with no CGI, and made it look beautiful.
Let’s get into the review.
Synopsis
Darryl Revok is the most powerful of all the scanners, and is the head of the underground scanner movement for world domination. Scanners have great psychic power, strong enough to control minds; they can inflict enormous pain/damage on their victims. Doctor Paul Ruth finds a scanner that Revok hasn’t, and converts him to their cause – to destroy the underground movement.
David Cronenberg directed the film, which stars Michael Ironside.
The Rundown
Though almost everyone dislikes Halloween III, Scanners set the tone for the films with modern secret agents, robots, evil masterminds, and more. Scanners wasn’t the first film to use strong moments of death scenes, but it is, however, one of the best in my opinion, along with George A. Romero’s movies in the seventies and eighties that gave us terrific gore and practical FX. I personally think this is one of the reasons Scanners stands out for me. Scanners had a bit of a Terminator feel, with mind powers instead of robots. The suspense of seeing how someone is going to be destroyed by someone else’s mind can get pretty tense when you’re waiting for a creative kill scene.
Scanners will always be remembered. Not for the storyline, not because of the great FX, but because they were undermined by the iconic head explosion. One two-second scene still amazes its fans and keeps this movie relevant for generations to come. Sadly, that’s what almost everyone enjoyed the film for what it was. You don’t hear too much talk about the actual movie, and what’s sad is, it was kind of a common scene, and I prefer the kill shot in Dawn of the Dead with a head full of whatever was found in the trash, such as apple cores. I don’t mean that in a negative way; I absolutely love this film, and I wish people would appreciate it just a bit beyond the explosion scene. There are so many scenes that would make you just as grossed out.
In The End
In the end, I still adore Scanners, and I think I am a minority in this situation. I don’t see why there would be an issue at all, the acting, the story, the sets, scream the real spirit of the eighties. We often lose movies like Scanners in the rush to keep up with modern horror. Scanners holds its own in horror history. Though mostly forgotten, Scanners broke into some disturbing thoughts, and in today’s culture, the movie could be a documentary. Maybe even a warning before we implode, and people can use mind powers to hurt each other; I can’t really tell, and I don’t want to.
