‘Scanners’ Turns 40 and Still Blows Our Minds

January 15, 2021

scanners 40 years — AVCO Embassy Pictures

Forty years ago, David Cronenberg kicked off an amazing 4-year film streak that included Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly and the one that started it, Scanners. After coming off The Brood in 1979, it was clear that the filmmaker had knack for making intuitive and dark science fiction films.

Cronenberg had actually started writing Scanners before The Brood, putting together two different partial scripts titled The Sensitives and Telepathy 2000, which he had originally planned to send to Roger Corman for production. Instead, Cronenberg was greenlit by a Canadian film production company, and was 100% funded by the tax shield there. The issue was, Cronenberg didn’t have a finished script, Due to time constraints of the tax shield, he was forced to start making the film anyway, finishing the writing at the same time as filming, including completing scenes on the day they were shooting them.

If you haven’t seen Scanners, here’s the gist of it. An underground movement of people that have intense psychic power, strong enough to read minds, control minds, and even kill with their minds exists. This movement is led by the most powerful psychic ever, Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), and their primary focuses are government takeover and world domination. Another powerful scanner named Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) is found by doctors before Revok can find him, and he is recruited to a cause to destroy Revok’s underground movement.

This was Michael Ironside’s first major feature film role, and he absolutely killed it as the villain. He was straight up diabolical. Cronenberg was perfect at casting and writing villains in his films, and Ironside had natural villain face, so it worked out perfectly. Ironside’s role in Scanners was what paved the way to his type-cast villain roles in huge films like Total Recall, Highlander II, and even as recently as Turbo Kid.

If you’re talking about Scanners, the one thing that must be brought up is the insanely epic head explosion scene. Even 40 years later, this scene remains one of the best horror practical effects of all time. Special effects supervisor Gary Zeller tried tons of different ways to get this scene to turn out the way he wanted, failing repeatedly. Finally, he decided on creating a plaster skull with a gelatin exterior, then filled the skull with latex scraps, dog food, leftover hamburgers from lunch, fake blood, and rabbit livers. He then had the crew go wait in their trucks with the windows and doors closed, laid behind the desk, and shot the fake head with an actual shotgun, blowing meaty bits all over the place like the horror gods intended. Even if you haven’t seen this film, if you’re a horror fan, you’ve most likely seen this scene.

Although it had a lot of negative reviews when released, Scanners did well enough financially, and was loved enough by the horror community to spawn two more sequels and two spinoffs. Although none of them come close to the original in quality, they still offer some gory popcorn fun. On its 40th birthday, Scanners still holds up as a brutal horror and sci-fi mystery, so go watch it in celebration, and get your mind blown all over again!