It was a bit of a wait (four weeks instead of the regular two) but we finally got around to our Shelter-In-Place film #47. Why did it take so long? Why hasn’t there been a film since? Well, things are in motion, and let’s just say that 47 is a good number. I mean, it’s prime, it’s 10 and 20 above the Moleeds numbers, it was retired in MLB for pitching greats Tom Glavine and Jack Morris…why can’t we just leave it be? The duration of the Shelter-In-Place has outlasted anything we could have possibly imagined…but it’s time for it to be over. So, God willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll be meeting in person for our next screening!
But in the meantime, we DID have one final streaming film, and for the lulz I went with David Cronenberg‘s 1981 breakthrough Scanners. I had somehow managed to miss it all this time – in fact I’ve seen remarkably few of Cronenberg’s oeuvre – so it seemed a good time to get it under my belt.
Panhandlers!
The film opens with homeless vagrant Cameron Vale hanging out at the food court of the shopping mall and causing old ladies to have splitting headaches with his mind. This is extremely rude, though Wikipedia insists to me that he doesn’t actually mean to do it, it’s just that he can’t help it, being a Scanner and all.
What’s a Scanner? Well, it’s a new special X-Men type of human – they have somewhat undefined psychic powers that will prove to be not exactly limited to remote onset headaches. Which is going to be good for the film’s premise, because we’ve all got family members that can give people headaches. Due to the Scanners’ abilities, the private military-style security company ConSec is vacuuming them up, and I don’t think it’s a prelude to a leveraged buyout of Tylenol. Anyhow, Vale, exposed by migraine grandma, is scooped up by ConSec.
Strappers!
Vale is injected with a substance called Ephemerol, which silences the voices in his head and allows him to feel normal.
Panellers!
In the meantime, one of the Scanners working for ConSec runs into a bit of trouble while giving an audience demonstration of his psychic abilities. A volunteer (the first volunteer – it really should have been the second) turns out to be a rogue Scanner, and they get into a psychic battle that ends…poorly for the ConSec man. You’ve seen it.
Splatters!
And, if somehow you hadn’t, well you have now. Watching the film I have to say this was a bit disappointing because 1) it happens in about the first 10 minutes of the film, and 2) it’s the only headsplosion in the entire movie. I wanted more headsplosions. Also, it was a very effective technique. I mean, it’s not like Churchill introduced tanks in the Battle of Arras and then just garaged them for the rest of WWII.
Trepanners!
It is determined that the culprit in this case is a rogue Scanner named Darryl Revok, whose attempts to make the voices in his head go away via trepanning didn’t work, and as a result he has gathered his own group of Scanners and is determined to destroy ConSec’s psychic crew. As far as evil mastermind plans go, it’s a bit half-baked.
B.F. Skinners!
Dr. Paul Ruth, one of the lead scientists for ConSec, convinces the board over initial opposition that they need to continue their Scanner program, and proposes that they ought to infiltrate Revok’s group. The best option for an infiltrator?
Chinners!
Why, it’s Cameron Vale, of course! So Cameron, who cleans up real nice, is sent off to make his way into Revok’s inner circle. It’s a move that bound not to work, because it turns out that the ConSec head of security is actually a Revokian mole, but we don’t know that yet!
Plasters!
Vale starts out by attempting to befriend Benjamin Pierce, an unaffiliated Scanner who tries to master his own demons by making massive and often grotesque plaster art. Since Pierce is not part of Revok’s group it’s not quite clear why this was Vale’s first move, but Cameron is new at this whole espionage thing. Also, because he has a mole and knows what is going on, some of Revok’s group shows up and shoots the studio up, killing Pierce but allowing Vale to escape.
Scarfers!
By reading Pierce’s mind before he dies (new Scanner power!), Vale is able to learn of another group of non-Revokian, non-ConSecian Scanners led by Kim Obrist. He crashes one of their meetings, bringing the wrath of Revok down upon them, leading to only Cam and Kim escaping alive. I mean, this dude is a real good luck charm. Good thing they’re heading back to ConSec!
At this point, the script starts to really unpack all of Cronenberg’s ideas all at once, and maybe not completely successfully. Revok turns out to own a company called Biocarbon Amalgamate, which has cornered the market on Ephemerol and is shipping it out to parties unknown using a computer program run by ConSec. That’s weird, and only makes sense…well, it doesn’t really make any sense, but it certainly helps the script get people into places they need to be. Dr. Ruth (remember him? Not the lady sexologist.) admits that he originally founded Biocarbon Amalgamate and suggests that Vale should just telepathically read ConSec’s computer records to figure out who BA is shipping the Ephemerol to.
FORTRANners!
Anyway, the ConSec head of security fails to capture Cam and Kim, but does kill Dr. Ruth before being killed himself in a catastrophic computer explosion caused by Cameron reading the computer’s mind from a pay phone. Not only is Vale now a modem, but apparently he can even beep-beep-boop his way into remote manifestation of plastic explosives. As I said, “not completely successfully” has the end of this script turned out.
But we have more revelations left in store! One of the biggest recipients of Ephemerol is…an obstetrician? It turns out that Ephemerol was originally designed to be a sedative to be used during pregnancy, but it had…side effects on the babies. What side effects, you might ask? No, you wouldn’t. You know damn well that Ephemerol makes ScannerBabies, which is why giving them Ephemerol as adults disables their power, something that makes perfect sense if you’re into homeopathy and no sense at all otherwise.
Scattereds!
And following a now-well-established pattern, Revok attacks the obstetrician’s, capturing Kim and Cam. Revok pulls the Darth-Vader-style revelation, telling Vale that the two are brothers, both children of the very same Dr. Paul Ruth, who originally invented Ephemerol and used mega doses on Amidala to create the two most powerful Scanners ever before scattering the children to Alderaan and Tatooine for…reasons. Or, actually, I don’t think there were even reasons. Anyway, Revok invites Vale to join him in his plot to rule the galaxy, but Vale refuses and there is an epic battle in which Revok destroys Vale.
Oh wait, except it turns out that Vale psychically swapped bodies with Revok just before dying (new Scanner power!), so everything turns out…happy?…in the end.
I think that Scanners ultimately turned out to be a disappointing film in second half, not just because of the relative lack of headsplosions, but also because the narrative becomes overly complicated, ultimately confusing, and compressed beyond belief. For the whole first half of the movie, I was watching it with pleasant surprise, thinking that it was actually a pretty well-made film. Headsplosions aside, it was exceeding my expectations in the script, in the acting, in the cinematography…and then it just kind of fell apart. It’s unfortunate, but at least the second half was good for a bunch of laughs.
Cinema 1544: The As-Official-As-It-Gets Site 