Scanners
| release date | January 14 1981 |
| studio | MGM |
| director | David Cronenberg |
| writer | David Cronenberg |
| starring | Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane |
| rating | R |
| trailer 1 | Trailer #1 |
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9 Comments
this is another excellent film by the great david cronenberg. i went in to this expecting to see a dumb movie with alot of exploding heads and no real plot. but this is before i really knew who cronenberg was. what it actually is is a great science fiction/horror film that makes you think. and as for the whole exploding head business goes, its only one scene in the beginning. great scene though. micheal ironside makes a great villain.
gh62
best head explosion
Very good movie with a kool head explosion.
Yeah! Another great Cronenberg film. Head exploding and all that…. But really, a good movie, exploding heads or no.
I watched this the other day after finding a copy in the oh so wonderful Wal-Mart bargin bins! What fun. Anyway Mr. Cronenberg really offers interesting visuals and a unique story. Gotta love the make-up effects too! But with all of this, there was something missing in the film. Some of the acting was stale and cheesy.
Great effects! Love the old school effects. Can’t get enough; especially when they’re done as amazingly as this.
That being said, the movie is pretty good. Nothing too fantastic, but it’s fun and watchable. A bit boring here and there and the main character is most definitely not the best actor in the world. Luckily, Michael Ironside as Revok IS. Well, not really but he surely helps to balance things out. Plus, he’s bad ass.
awesome story, very original. it gets pretty boring there for a while, but the ending is cool. and that head explosion is outrageous!
DDD
This is such a great film! David Cronenberg is such a genius when he came up with that full on head explosion scene. It is just awesome!
This is a good movie with a great story. I enjoyed it from start to end. The scanning is something out of this world and done in a creepy good way. The head explosion was great along with the last moments of the movie.
David Cronenberg makes some very graphic yet intelligent movies. The exploding head scene is infamous and the story and acting is first-rate. I love the final battle too and the outcome of that is a great twist.
Awesome movie, and not JUST for the head explosion scene. It’s a great film all around. Highly reccommended.
Finally saw this because it is on Netflix Instant Play. Been wanting to see it after seeing a gif of that guy’s head explode. Sadly there isn’t a whole lot of those scenes and the main actor is completely horrible. I wish Michael Ironside were in it more as well…almost wish the movie were just about his character. Overall it was entertaining and the last fight sequence was pretty awesome looking. But the ending itself felt a bit too ambiguous. I’m still uncertain if he took over the good guy’s body or vice versa.
Leave it up to David Cronenberg to make a fucked up movie once again. I love this movie. It is well shot and the performances are pretty good. The whole plot and story was great and very refreshing. One of the best death scenes in awhile with the exploding head.
Finally I’ve seen this Cronenbergian masterstroke. A terrific and highly intelligent sci-fi/horror film, quite grim and depressing, incredibly atmospheric and also a bit disturbing. The story is ace, the script is brilliant and the cast is great (Michael Ironside, Patrick McGoohan…). Most impressive are the unbelievably thrilling soundtrack and of course every single scanning scene (especially the collapsing woman in the beginning, the exploding head and the fantastic ending). A brilliant classic!
‘Scanners’ is a 1981 Cult Horror & Sci-Fi movie (for the fans).
Come on BD, get with the program on the “Official Scores”. Younger folks are missing out on some great, classic horror movies because of your skimpy coverage. This one is an easy five skulls. Watch it, you’ll love it.
Also, David Cronenberg made some absolutely SICK, in every sense of the word, horror movies in his early career. I give them all five skulls: “They Came From Within (1975)”, “Rabid (1977)” and “The Brood (1979)”. Cronenberg was fully formed as an auteur ov venereal disease-inspired (my opinion) horror by 1975.
You might also like “Crash”. It’s about people who get-off on reenacting car crashes. Not one of my Cronenberg faves. However, “Dead Ringers”, about twin gynecologists; gets five skulls from me.
HUGE let down, I wanted some heads blowing off, what did I get? One. One head blown off within the first 10mins and to be honest this film needed heads being blown off to make it entertaining. Scanners has its moments but I expected more from Cronenberg, the idea had potential but ultimately this is a load of crap.
All around a great film, definitely check it out.
Scanners is a rare 80′s gem. It has a very unique sotry and the settings the film takes place in are also very unique. You can’t truely relate it to any other film which is a good thing. It is very well shot, has decent acting and of course the infamous head explosion in the beginning of the film. It’s truely a horror film worth tracking down.
Score: 8.5
Scanners is one of those 80′s movies that is definitely fun, but also has a straight storyline, good acting… and an exploding head. Usual 80′s horror movies don’t have good acting or a good storyline, but usually the exploding head. That being said, Scanners is really fun, the acting is pretty good, the settings were really well put together, the special effects were great, and the storyline is really original. I highly recommend it.
when i watched this as a young kid i loved it. but i just watched it again many years later, and i didn’t remember it being that bad. i don’t want to be mistaken here, i like the movie a lot, but there are a lot of boring scenes, terrible actors, and just plane old 80′s B movie idiocy. having said that, i think the idea is one of the best of any sci fi movie out there. and of course the effx at the beginning and at the end are some of the best. ever. i think that this movie should be viewed by anybody looking to see something original, but remember that not everything about this movie is great, just pretty good.
When you hear the concept of people who can let other people’s heads explode for the first time you may think this movie is a senseless Exploitation flick, but it is a story driven Thriller instead, which has some bloody moments, but isn’t as gruesome as you hear it to be.
Unfortunately the effects aren’t really incredible, the office building of ConSec looks like someone’s living room with some people dressed as scientists.
But people searching for an entertaining thriller with one little twist or the other will have fun with this movie, but it’s certainly nothing for gorehounds, maybe Scanners 2 is the better movie for these people.