recommended

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

David Cronenberg's SCANNERS is one of my favourites of his films – it's a rip-roaring B-movie with a great premise, good acting, and genuine horror. When I sat down to watch the sequel, I had a good idea of what I was getting myself into – an unconnected B-movie in name only, made in 1991 so probably pretty cheesy. Boy, I was wrong! This is a sequel that follows the original film pretty closely but puts a fresh spin on proceedings, and it actually doesn't come off too badly in comparison to the first. Sure, the director can't hope to match Cronenberg's work, but for the most part this is a pacy, exciting little thriller with some well-staged action scenes. And it's only a little bit cheesy.David Hewlett makes for a charismatic lead and he's ably supported by an intriguing cast. This being a Canadian production, half of the actors are French, and Yvan Ponton is the best of the lot, a truly hissable and appalling villain. It was great to see Isabelle Mejias again after her titular role in video-nasty era horror flick JULIE DARLING; Mejias is an actress with an indefinable, hypnotic quality about her. I would describe her as elfin and she lights up the screen whenever I see her; it's a shame she hasn't done more work. Raoul Trujillo, playing an evil scanner, goes way over the top but there was something about his crazed, energetic performance that grabs your attention in the same way that Jim Carrey does. Of course, there are the requisite exploding heads and other bubbly, grisly special effect sequences, and these are all well-handled. This is a fine little film that puts other B-movies from the era to shame.

David Cronenbergs original, „Scanners", was a one of a kind film: it was science fiction, it was horror, an action film, yet, it felt more like a drama, the characters firmly in the centre of attention. We were able to relate to the Scanners, seeing them as normal human beings, who had super-powers that were at the same time a disease.The sequel takes a slightly different turn: the action- and science fiction elements churned up, it feels more like a "RoboCop"- then a "Scanners"-sequel and the amped-up colour, sound and special-effects give the film a comic book-feel. A good example is the use of the drug 'Ephemerol': in the original, it's a medicine that has no effect on 'normal' people but temporarily cures the Scanners from the side-effects of their powers; in "Scanners 2" it's a drug that turns Scanners and non-Scanners alike into bald-headed addicts, eventually killing them.In the original film, there's a 'sound' of what the Scanners hear in their heads, permeating almost every scene, fractions of sentences and words, voices and noise; the viewer can relate why the Scanners live a tortured existence. Here, the 'Scanner-sound' is reduced to a light, vibrating noise that sets in ever time a Scanner uses his powers.Christian Duguay clearly is no David Cronenberg; the director is more at home at the straight-to-video horror and science fiction genre. Not to say that the director is doing a bad job; within the limits of above mentioned genre it's a very neat movie but, to give you a reference, imagine Wim Wenders "Wings of Desire" being remade by Brad Silverling.As for the acting, most of the performances are B-movie at best, but adequate for a sequel like "Scanners II". Especially the villains, Tom Butler, Yvan Ponton, Vlasta Vrana and Michael Rudder, seemed to have climbed straight from a comic book. Special mention should go to Raoul Trujillo (decades before he'd play 'Zero Wolf', the monstrous Mayan bounty hunter in "Apocalypto"), who fantastically hams it up as psychopathic Scanner Peter Drak.The gore-factor, one of the trademarks of the "Scanners"-franchise, has been hyped up a notch or two, never reaching the level 'splatter-movie', but often coming close. However, especially younger viewers should be warned, that this movie comes from a pre-CGI era, relying entirely on special effects, not computer animation, hence, may seem a little rough on eyes used to contemporary CGI.All in all it's an enjoyable little romp but suffers the fate of most remakes: it just doesn't stand the comparison to the original. If you came for action, exploding heads and the archetypical "Scanner-grimacing", you cannot go wrong with "Scanners 2" – but if you consider the original film a piece of art and hope for a similarly inspired film, you might leave disappointed.8 points for being a 90's video-cheapo of it's own right, 5 as a sequel to an art-film like "Scanners", so I settle for 7 points out of 10.

I have always love the film Scanners and have always loved David Cronenberg, but after Deadringers, I always felt he started to go downhill from a wonderful ride in the horror genre. Scanners was one of his best in his early period, when he was working from original screenplays and wasn't in an adaptation funk at all (ie., Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly and Crash). It was a promising plotline and was very entertaining. It has also become a cult classic. So when I saw this sequel when it first came out, I didn't think it would be as good as it is.I'll spare you the plotline since you've undoubtably have read the other reviews, but I will comment on the films structure. It works surprisingly well considering the original didn't leave much for a sequel like this one. If one were to truly look at the first film for a sequel, the likely route would have been to have the main characters be on the run from the secret corporate organizations (a plotline used in Firestarter) which could lead to a very boring and predictable outcome. But this film was made ten years later and the plotline ideas can have new twists and it is this factor that makes this film a success.The opening ropes you in by the way it mimics the opening to the original--homeless, drifting Scanner losses mind in public and gets corralled by the guys in shades and trenchcoats. But its different from the original opening in that Scanners 2 opens with the vagabond Scanner screaming at the city in agony as the mental voices of the population invade his extrasensory mind and drive him crazy. It would be like an itch you can't scratch. I liked this aspect of the opening and it made me realize the filmmaker was a huge fan of the first film. It proved he wanted to be true to the first film and not just make another sequel in name only. The plot device of making the Scanners junkies to mind suppressing drugs was another excellent addition. It further proves the filmmaker's desire to make a good sequel.If you loved the first film, you have to give this one a try. It is very entertaining, great character development and delivers in the gore factor department.

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.