5 April 2013 10:00 PM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Scanners | The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | The House In Nighmare Park | The Servant | Dead End Drive-in
From Sam Raimi to Peter Jackson, horror has always been a great way for directors to get a career start: as long as they provide marketable gore, they can pretty much make whatever they want. David Cronenberg used the tactic too, but his early films are perhaps closer to science fiction.
Scanners was his big breakthrough success. It fulfilled the basic horror requirements with little more than a single image – the exploding head – but it was such a strong image that it sparked a trend in the early 80s. Scanners are misfits with telekinetic powers who don't fit into society. A scanner underground network is waging war against multinational ConSec, whose reckless drug testing on pregnant women caused these aberrations (playing the rebels' leader is Michael Ironside, a never-unemployed actor with the ideal »
- Phelim O'Neill
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