Scanners (1981)
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76% of critics liked it
(25 reviews) -
61% of users liked it
(30,252 ratings)
The title of this David Cronenberg sci-fi horror film refers to a group of people who have telekinetic powers that allow them to read minds and give them the ability to make other people's heads explode. The children of a group of women who took an experimental tranquilizer during their… More The title of this David Cronenberg sci-fi horror film refers to a group of people who have telekinetic powers that allow them to read minds and give them the ability to make other people's heads explode. The children of a group of women who took an experimental tranquilizer during their pregnancies, the scanners are now adults and have become outcasts from society. But Darryl (Michael Ironside) decides to create an army of scanners to take over the world. The only person who can stop him is his brother Cameron (Stephen Lack), who wants to forget that he was ever a scanner. Winner of the International Fantasy Film Award at the 1983 Fantasporto Film Festival, Scanners was followed by a pair of sequels, neither of which involved Cronenberg. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Directed By
- David Cronenberg
- Genres
- Horror, Mystery & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy
- In Theaters
- Feb 14, 1981 Wide
- On DVD
- Aug 28, 2001
- Studio
- Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Critic Reviews
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Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
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.
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, Variety
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.
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Derek Adams, Time Out
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.
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Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Scanners is so lockstep that we are basically reduced to watching the special effects, which are good but curiously abstract, because we don't much care about the people they're happening around.
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Vincent Canby, New York Times
The quality of the film's inventiveness is not always of the first order, which is too bad because Mr. Cronenberg does seem to be a director-writer of some style.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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Stephen Lack
as Vale
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Jennifer O'Neill
as Kim
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Patrick McGoohan
as Dr. Paul Ruth
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Lawrence Z. Dane
as Keller
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Chuck Shamata
as Gaudi
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Michael Ironside
as Revok
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Adam Ludwig
as Crostic
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Victor Désy
as Dr. Gatineau
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Mavor Moore
as Trevellyan
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Robert A. Silverman
as Pierce
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Neil Affleck
as Medical Student in Hall
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Robert Boyd
as Hallucinating Guard
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Lee Broker
as Security One
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Terry Coady
as Security 1 Car Passenger
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Louis Del Grande
as First Scanner
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Nicholas Kilbertus
as Security 2 Car Passenger
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Victor Knight
as Dr. Frane
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Geza Kovacs
as Killer in Record store
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Denis Lacroix
as Killer in Barn
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Jack Messinger
as Scanner at Door
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Anthony Sherwood
as Scanner in Attic
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Alex Stevens
as Programmer 3
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Jerome Tiberghien
as Killer in Attic
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Anne Anglin
as Scanner in Attic
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Ken Umland
as Scanner in Attic
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Sonny Forbes
as Killer in Attic
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Steve Michaels
as Security 1 Car Driver
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Lee Murray
as Programmer 1
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Malcolm Nelthorpe
as Security 2 Car Driver
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Fred Doederlein
as Dieter Tautz
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Dean Hagopian
as Programmer 2

