Tag Archives: Scanners

Horror Scenes I Love: Scanners (by David Cronenberg)

Posted on by Arleigh

[SPOILERS!!!!]

I’ve already shared a favorite scene from David Cronenberg’s landmark scifi/horror film Scanners over a year ago that saw a head explode. For October’s horror-themed month I picked another great scene from this film that always stuck with me long after I’ve finished watching the film each and every time.

The scene I’m talking about is the climactic showdown between Good Scanner Cameron and Evil Scanner Revok. This scene was filmed before the advent of CGI-effects and Cronenberg never had the sort of big-budgets to hire the top FX make-up artists to work on his films. Yet, Cronenberg ended up creating one of the best scenes ever put on film about two people fighting each other using their minds. We never see their mental abilities shooting off psychic blasts at each other but the performance by both Michael Ironside as Revok and Stephen Lack as Cameron was so believable that it made the scene work when it could’ve turned so cheesy and disastrous in the hands of a different filmmaker and other actors.

The battle ends but we’re left to believe the good guy lost and evil triumphs. This feeling pretty much plays out right up to the final scene before fade to black and even then we’re not sure if the final reveal is true or not. Either way there’s no better way to bookend the exploding head intro than with two psychic beings duking it out mentally with blood, spontaneous combustion and creepy white eyes added in for style.

Scenes I Love: Scanners

Posted on by Arleigh

While bored out of my mind this early Monday morning (no work due to the Memorial Day holiday) I do what I usually do to try and get out of it: I surf YouTube. Doing this sometimes alleviates my boredom and sometimes it doesn’t. This time around it did as I came across a scene from a film that has to be one of my all-time favorites. An all-time favorite film and scene both.

The scene I came across is one of the earliest sequences in David Cronenberg’s seminal sci-fi work, Scanners. It stars Michael Ironside in the film’s villanous role as Darryl Revok. In this scene we don’t know he’s the heavy. We suspect something to be off about him, but we can’t put a finger on it. It’s during the unfolding of this short scene that we finally realize that Revok is not what he seems to be as the unfortunate “scanner” expert next to him begins to feel the depths of Revok’s ability. A feeling that soon turns to pain and then finally the explosive result.

I think I was nine years-old when I first saw this scene and to say that it left an indelible mark on me would be an understatement. I was still too young to truly appreciate Cronenberg as a filmmaker then, but years later when I saw this again when film started to become more than just entertainment for me was when I saw just how much a genius the man was. This scene helped put me on what would turn out to be an ongoing love affair of all things Cronenberg.

Also, for those who don’t know, Michael Ironside also ends up voicing that iconic video character Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell franchise.

6 Trailers From 1981

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi and welcome to the latest installment of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers.  I apologize for being a few days late with this installment. 

This week, I’m highlighting trailers from the year 1981.  1981 not only saw the release of Lucio Fulci’s twin classics The Beyond and The House By The Cemetary, it was also the year that my sister Melissa was born.  (Happy birthday, Melissa Anne!) 

You may notice that, despite citing them above, I did not include the trailer for either one of Fulci’s films in this post.  I’m saving them for a future edition.  Instead, let’s start with Alien Contamination and end with Christiane F. and see what waits in the middle.

1) Alien Contamination

Earlier in this series, I featured the trailer for Luigi Cozzi’s Star Wars rip-off, Starcrash.  This is the trailer for Cozzi’s attempt to rip-off both Alien and Lucio Fulci’s classic Zombi 2.  The film is pretty dull but I have to give the trailer mad props for actually making this movie look like it might be kinda fun.

2) Scanners

In this trailer, David Cronenberg proves that nothing sells a film like an exploding head.

3) Dead & Buried

I haven’t seen this film but I’ve read several favorable reviews of it.  While the trailer isn’t nearly as graphic as some of the other trailers that I’ve featured in this series, I still like it.  With the ominous narrator and all, it has a nice retro feel to it.

4) The Evil Dead

Speaking of retro, here’s the trailer to the original Evil Dead. 

5) Copkiller a.k.a. Order of Death

I recently ordered this Italian film off of Amazon but I have yet to sit down and watch it.  The trailer, for me, is memorable just because it’s a chance to see both Harvey Keitel and Johnny Rotten (who were both quite the sexy beast back in 1981) occupying the same space.

6) Christiane F.

Some people, I know, would disagree with me referring to Christiane F. as being an exploitation film.  I’m sure that the film’s award-winning director — Uli Edel — would disagree with me.  However, Europe’s art films were often sold as America’s grindhouse movies and, just from anecdotal evidence, that was often the case with Christiane F.  Besides, I love this trailer if just for the music alone.