Scanners
1981, Sci fi, 1h 42m
37 Reviews 25,000+ RatingsWhat to know
Scanners is a dark sci-fi story with special effects that'll make your head explode. Read critic reviews
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Scanners Photos
Movie Info
Cast & Crew
Cameron Vale
Kim Obrist
Doctor Paul Ruth
Braedon Keller
Arno Crostic
Darryl Revok
News & Interviews for Scanners
Critic Reviews for Scanners
All Critics (37) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (26) | Rotten (11)
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Scanners, according to David Cronenberg's new film, are people who can control others with their thoughts...The idea has a certain cachet. But Scanners doesn't pay off on it.
April 28, 2018 | Full Review… -
The generous selection of bonus features includes vintage elements, like a trailer made up almost entirely of the exploding-head scene, a handful of radio spots, and a 1981 talk-show appearance in which Cronenberg discusses his work up to that point.
July 14, 2014 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review… -
Scanners consolidates the ruling problematic of the Cronenberg project from the sex slugs of Shivers to the financial abstractions of Cosmopolis: what are the effects of signals on an organism?
July 7, 2014 | Full Review… -
Like Tod Browning, Cronenberg doesn't have the stylistic resources to match the forcefulness of his ideas, but his movies remain in the mind for the pull of their private obsessions.
June 5, 2007 | Full Review… -
All this should give fans of David Cronenberg's previous pix their money's worth, although lack of any rooting interest vitiates any possible suspense and highly elegant visual style works against much shock value.
June 5, 2007 | Full Review… -
Part conspiracy thriller, part political tract, it is Cronenberg's most coherent movie to date, drawing a dark (but bland) world in which corporate executives engineer human conception to produce ever more powerful mental samurai.
June 24, 2006 | Full Review…
Audience Reviews for Scanners
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Jun 25, 2016Excellent story-line and I wished it should have more to it.Film C Super Reviewer
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May 24, 2016Watching this I try to imagine Cronenberg's directing his lead actors: "I need you to look as if you're trying to blow somebody's head off ... by only thinking about it." I try to imagine his actors processing that direction: "What exactly does THAT look like? What does this guy want?" All about big government conspiracy, and the rebellion against that, this is some big fun if you can get over the age of the work.Kevin M. W Super Reviewer
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Feb 21, 2016Gore abound and while an interesting concept it is very slow going!Sanity Assassin ! Super Reviewer
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Jun 20, 2015Maybe I judged this movie too soon.I saw Scanners on VHS at the local Goodwill Outlet store but really had no interest in watching it so I threw it back in the bin.Lately I've been seeing it on the free movie channel so I decided to give it a go &..... It turned out to be an OK movie.It's definitely interesting & something I'd tell whoever to go see at least once.The exploding head at the start of the movie, Wow.That was 1 of the grossest but coolest (I feel wrong for saying that) things I've seen in a Horror flick.The rest of Scanners was solid with alot of really nice special effects.The ending kinda fell off for me but I don't know why.I don't know if it caught me off guard or I just didn't get it.The eyeballs part was gross as well & if you watched this movie, You know what I mean.If not, You've been warned.I'm glad I watched Scanners but I'm not kicking myself for putting it back it in the binBrody M Super Reviewer
Scanners Quotes
| Revok: | There's a whole generation of scanners soldiers just a few months away from being born. We'll find them. Train them to be like us. Not like Obrist and their band of cripples. We'll bring the world of normals to their knees. We'll build an empire so brilliant, so glorious. We'll be the envy of the whole planet. |
| Revok: | This was a test campaign used in 1947 to market a new product. The product was a drug, a tranquilizer called 'Ephemerol'. It was aimed at pregnant women. If it had worked, it would have been marketed all over North America. But the campaign failed and the drug failed, because it had a side effect on the unborn children. An invisible side effect. |
| Vale: | It created scanners. |
| Vale: | Ephemerol. Ephemerol is creating new scanners. |
| Vale: | [sees that Kim has had a nosebleed] What happened? |
| Kim: | I was scanned. The woman in the waiting room... |
| Vale: | She scanned you?? |
| Kim: | No, not her. Her child. Her unborn child scanned me. |
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