scanners

Throughout his career director David Cronenberg has earned the horror / sci-fi genre some much needed critical legitimacy. Although his films were full of the same exploitation elements that popped up in Roger Corman quickies, there was a grand design behind it all, an almost scientific fascination that peeled back layer after cinematic layer. Cronenberg’s films weren’t simply drive-in fare. They were genuinely disturbing drive-in fare.

After trying his hand at “safe” commercial success with the car race film Fast Company, the director dove back into his particular brand of weirdness with Scanners (1981), the story of rival mutant telepaths created and recruited by shadow corporations to be used as human weapons for the purpose of international espionage. Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) is brought into the fold and taught to control his powers for the greater good. Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), however, refuses to be manipulated and lashes out in a most dramatic fashion, leading to the film’s most iconic gross-out effect.

It shouldn’t be a spoiler to talk about the infamous exploding head sequence; it’s Scanners’ signature moment and one that was featured in every horror movie magazine as the pinnacle of effect works at the time. But it wouldn’t be nearly as powerful without Cronenberg’s effective build-up to that bloody punctuation mark.

Scanners is a true evolution for the director who employs a good number of dramatic camera moves and a quick-cut editing style he hadn’t used before…and rarely since. Although it’s built around the same cold, analytical approach to terror Cronenberg used in preceding films like The Brood and Shivers, Scanners is almost operatic in terms of scale and execution, leading to one of the most startling showdowns in movie history.

But the film has its share of frustrations as well, most notably in the form of lead actor Stephen Lack. A Montreal artist with very little film work on his resume, Lack’s performance is overwhelmed by those around him, particularly that of Ironside whose iconic turn here as the villainous Revok would foreshadow his future career as the bad guy to beat once he made the move to American films. It doesn’t help that much of Lack’s ADR dialogue is stiff and separated from the action onscreen and his chemistry with guest star Jennifer O’Neal is non-existent.

Cronenberg’s follow-ups (Videodrome, The Dead Zone and The Fly) would showcase a director at the height of his powers molding big studio projects into his own image. But there’s something special about the cut-rate Canadian ambitions of Scanners, proving that big ideas can trump big budgets any day of the week.

The Criterion Collection’s (spine #712 if you’re keeping track) hi-def presentation of the film includes a new, restored 2K transfer of the film supervised by Cronenberg himself. It’s sharp, detailed and more colorful that ever before. Extras include a 30-minute featurette on the effects works (with contributions from The Fly’s Chris Walas and The Exorcist’s Dick Smith), extended interviews with Ironside and Lack, and a 10-minute segment with Cronenberg being grilled by an obnoxious host for a morning Canadian TV show. Trailers, radio spots, liner notes by Kim Newman and some fantastically avante garde cover art complete the Blu-ray / DVD package whose only fault lies in the absence of any direct participation by the director himself.