Scanners III: Puissance maximum

Christian Duguay directed in 1991 "Scanners II: The New Order", that same year he directed a third part, "Scanners III: The Takeover". The second film was amazing but this third part is weak, some good acting and gore, interesting scenes but the film is not that good, the comedy used in some moments is stupid. The script could be better. "Scanners" and "Scanners II: The New Order" are great films, but "Scanners III: The Takeover" is not good but not that bad either.

Of the five "Scanners" movies that have been made to date, "Scanners III: The Takeover" is the least of the series. That is not to say that it isn't fun to watch; if you like B movies, this particular one does have some entertaining elements. It's pretty well made for what was a low budget, there are some pleasing splatter moments here and there, and the core of the story does have some intriguing idea that had potential. However, the actual execution of the story does have some unsatisfying aspects to it. Even though the movie runs only 95 or so minutes, you can really feel the padding; it didn't have to run as long as it did. The expansion of the powers of the scanners gets downright silly and unbelievable at times, even though this is a B movie. And the occasional attempts at humor run all over the map, ranging from being low key effective to downright embarrassing. If you liked the other entries of this series, you'll probably find enough to enjoy here, but you'll still think that the screenplay (by four writers!) should have had some serious rewrites before filming started.

I remember throwing in the towel on the Scanners series after being particularly underwhelmed by Scanners 2: The New Order, and subsequently kept my distance when Scanners 3: The Takeover, Scanner Cop and Scanner Cop 2 (aka Scanners: The Showdown) all appeared on the video rental shelves. Maybe I was a little premature on calling time on the series though, as finally catching up with it nearly thirty years later, Scanners 3: The Takeover unexpectedly turned out to be lots of fun.

Colin Fox (star of the legendary Canadian horror soap opera 'Strange Paradise') essentially has the Patrick McGoohan role in this one, playing the scientist father to a pair of scanner siblings. The son, Alex grows up to go all Rambo 3, attempting to find himself by living among Buddhist monks. Daughter, Helena on the other hand becomes the Guinea Pig in her father's experiments which transform her from the meek and mousy type to a megalomaniac vixen who uses her scanner powers to climb the corporate ladder.

After two sombre sequels, Scanners 3 really beats you about the head with the silly stick, as naughty Helena uses her scanner powers to make a chauvinistic colleague perform a striptease at a well-to-do restaurant, forces a talk show host and his star guest to make horny fools of themselves on live TV, while a pigeon learns the hard way that it is not wise to poop on a scanner. Helena also has male scanner followers, who once mobilised, start dressing like prohibition era gangsters, and an oversexed nurse scanner who seems to think she is acting in a parody of a porn film.

Considering how tonally different this all is to the first Scanners film, there is a surprising amount of callbacks to early Cronenberg movies here. The flirty behavior on the live talk show recalls the James Woods/Debbie Harry antics of Videodrome, dead bodies end up in a garbage truck à la Rabid, and on the basis of this and Rabid (original and remake), Canadians must really have it in for men dressed as Father Christmas.

As Helena, polish actress Liliana Komorowska drops into the film with all the subtlety of a megaton bomb, playing a mixture of Joan Collins and Donald Trump, while sporting an accent so thick that it feels like she was on a one woman war against the English language. The long-of-name Komorowska easily overshadows the bland 1990s pretty boy playing her sibling/adversary, as the series ventures into the era of male ponytails, corporate villains, erotic thrillers and yes even kick-boxer movies.

'Scanners 3: The Takeover' is actually a bit of a mini-epic. It doesn't have half the budget of the previous film and there are some off-the-wall, kooky performances from almost all of the characters but this is definitely the better – and by better, I mean camp fun - of the 2 films. The film begins with an introduction to Alex Monet, a brash Scanner that has reduced his abilities to a literal party trick. When he absent-mindedly kills his best friend at one such party, he decides, in an effort of contrition, to find a way to better hone his powers. This leads him to the Buddhist monasteries of Tibet. Meanwhile, his sister, Helena Monet, (who is the heir to the pharmaceutical company that is working on a 'cure' for the previously-described side effects of the scanning mutation) is experimenting with said drug, turning her into a power-hungry megalomaniac. Much as the original 'Scanners' introduced the ability to control computers, Helena attempts to control people by passing a 'scanner signal' through pre-recorded video. When Alex returns, it is a cat and mouse game pitting brother against sister.

There is no doubt in my mind that the spark that inspired these follow-ups was the singularly iconic exploding head from the original and these sequels do not let down. There is a surplus of gooey gore and a sense that each death is an attempt to outdo the last. If you're after the headier (no pun intended) aspirations of Cronenberg, you are bound to be disappointed with these. If you are hoping to see fountains of blood spewing from the skulls of random characters, this is the place.

A young female scanner turns from a sweet young thing into a murderous, power-crazed villain after she takes an experimental drug developed by her father. Her brother, who is also a scanner, is the only one powerful enough to stop her.

We start out with the standard good and evil plot, brother against sister... but, in all fairness, this is a plot structure that works. From there, it actually gets much more creative, introducing the use of Eastern meditation to control the scanning and the use of TV to more widely broadcast scanning.

Some memorable moments are here, too, including the mind-control dance scene, the Taiwanese boxing and plenty of firefights and explosions, including an arm that flies off.

As with "Scanners II", this definitely could have been a series, even more than the last film. The ideas developed here really set up a broader picture of good scanners against bad ones, and how such powers could be used not just on a combat level, but to actually infiltrate and dominate society. There is much potential.