Scanners II - Eine neue Generation

Scanners 2 is about some guy who is hired to work for a police commissioner to only find out the commissioner is a corrupt butt rammer and wants to control the city. It may not have the complexity or the originality the original Scanners movie did but my God was this fun as hell. It is very action oriented with lots of great and well executed bloody violence featuring head popping and people being flung around. The story was coherent enough, the pacing was good and the acting was neat. Not as good as the original (nuuuh) but a worthy sequel regardless.

Nothing can match the brilliance of David Cronenberg's original Scanners, but this first sequel does a good job of coming close.

The plot is essentially the same. Nice guy scanner doesn't understand his powers, hones his abilities, and eventually enters into a scanning war with an evil scanner. Some details are changed here and there, such as the police chief who wants to use scanners to accomplish a radical new shift in local government, and the long lost sister of the nice guy scanner that enables the hero to "possess" a target as opposed to scan him to death.

Scanners 2, like the original, has a reputation for being terribly gory. In reality, there are only two scenes of true gore, (an exploding head, and a spurting tumor on the back of a criminal's neck) but plenty of people flung against walls from unseen mental forces. A few folks end up with deformed faces, but no blood. The final climactic battle is very toned down, and results only in a burned-out corpse shown briefly.

The plot does have some references to the protagonists from the original film, but it is not necessary to see the first movie before seeing this one.

'Scanners 2: The New Order' & 'Scanners 3: The Takeover' are more stand-alone interpretations of the themes and scenarios introduced by Cronenberg's 1981 classic than actual sequels. By all rights, it's no surprise that few have seen these; they are oozing with an early-1990's, straight-to-video feel but, as a couple, there is some genuine weight here and both films definitely have their merits.

First of all, what is a 'Scanner'? Well, we learn in the original film that in the 1950's a medication called ephemerol was tested on a large number of women to ease the discomfort of pregnancy. Much to the surprise of all involved, the drug caused a mutation in the infants; they were born with powers including (but not limited to) telekinesis, extrasensory perception, and the ability to read minds. Each film builds on these powers, reaching a fever-pitch of suspended disbelief by the third.

In 'Scanners 2: The New Order' we are introduced to David Kellum, a mild-mannered veterinary student who's scanning abilities are just surfacing – apparently the result of his moving away from the quiet countryside and to a volatile (and fantastically Canadian) city. He is approached by a research lab that is trying to find fresh Scanners who are not psychopaths; one of the side effects of the mutation is that it often drives those affected completely insane. David discovers that the corporation has a dubious ulterior motive and he uses his newly tuned scanning abilities to fight back.

Unaware that he is a scanner, a young social misfit is mentored by a police officer to use his psychic abilities to solve crimes in this belated sequel to David Cronenberg's 'Scanners'. While not a patch on the original, 'The New Order' is hardly worthless. Many plot elements are recycled from Part One, most notably the scanner oblivious to his powers and a battle between a 'good' and 'bad' one, however, the film also takes the concept in refreshing new directions. His detective work as a scanner is fascinating (even if we only ever really see it in action once); there is a great bit where he uses scanning to stop a store robbery; another scanner controls video arcade machines with his abilities; and at its most touching, our protagonist inadvertently uses his scanning powers to comfort and calm down pet store animals. The film is very well photographed too with lots of low camera angles and tracking shots courtesy of 'My Bloody Valentine' cinematographer Rodney Gibbons. The biggest minus here is the acting, which varies from non-charismatic to annoyingly over-the-top, with Raoul Max Trujillo the worst offender in the latter regard. The action sequences are solid, the special effects are almost as good as in the original, and while the atmosphere is never the same, the film at least manages to add a lot of extra ideas to the mythology of scanners.

Scanners II was released in the late 80's or early 90's, it was one of the last true low budget horror films before my town turned into big budget studio depot for films. Scanners II is both visually stunning with some great opening shots of Montreal and has a great comic book style plot. Yeah sure the connection to the first Scanners was kinda cheesy in execution, but this film is alot faster in pace and has more action than the very slow paced Scanners. The FX by Mike Smithson are great and very realistic before our dependence to all that is CGI. But overall the performances are good but nothing to write home about. Overall Scanners II has good cinematography and a clever little story of world domination to entertain fans as well as the casual viewer. I suggest to anyone to check it out and be totally entertained for 100 minutes.