A man with telepathic ability is recruited to infiltrate a clandestine group led by a nefarious ringleader with a similar ability in Cronenberg’s breakthrough sci-fi thriller that reveals his marked distaste for corporations and authorities that exploit humans and their bodies.

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David Cronenberg made some kind of breakthrough in the United States with Scanners, a sci-fi thriller infamous for the iconic ‘exploding head’ scene early on, literally of a man’s head exploding in the goriest fashion imaginable. 

Surely one of the most shocking moments in the director’s body of work, even if it seems to have overshadowed what is actually a decent film that introduces the concept of ‘Scanners’—people who possess the telepathic ability to mind-control others to do things for them. 

As you can imagine, these people, numbering in the hundreds, are exploited by a ringleader with the nefarious ambition of ruling the world.  

One Scanner with a burgeoning super-ability, Cameron Vale, is tasked with covert infiltration by the authorities hoping to mount a resistance against the destructive clandestine group. 

With its ‘80s dystopian setting, Scanners does create a kind of palpable paranoia, and that early ‘gory shock’ also threatens to erupt many more times, thus producing a kind of look-away tension. 

“I’m gonna suck your brain dry!”

However, what transpires later is much more about unravelling the mystery surrounding the presence of Scanners and the suspicious production of a particular drug to control them, than pure body horror that, say, his later Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986) would supply not just with abundance but with greater ingenuity. 

Still, there are enough characters with nefarious intentions to plot out more films—in fact, believe it or not, there were numerous B-grade and direct-to-video sequels and spinoffs produced in the 1990s. 

Cronenberg’s obviously the best of the lot, and despite the somewhat unconvincing lead performance by Stephen Lack as Cameron, Scanners largely works and culminates in a satisfying if ambiguous ending. 

Made just a year after The Shining (1980), Cronenberg perhaps leveraged somewhat on the cinematic interest in the depiction of telepathy. 

Instead of themes of isolation and madness that made Kubrick’s work so effectively haunting, the Canadian auteur goes down another path altogether that largely aligns with his marked distaste for corporations and authorities that oppress and exploit humans and their bodies.      

Grade: B+

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