Skip to main content

Scanners (1981) - David Cronenberg

The next movie that I bring you is Scanners from 1981. A cornerstone when it comes to the Body Horror genre. Directed by veteran film director David Cronenberg who is also responsible The Fly, The Brood, Videodrome, and more recently Eastern Promises. This movie hits all of his usual features. The story is fantastic and presented in the best way it could have been for it's time. You can definitely see this movie as being an inspiration for the horror directors that followed. Namely, Clive Barker.

Now you can't talk about Scanners without bringing up the gore. The blood spurting everywhere. The heads exploding! These are such detailed scenes, they're pretty gruesome. The most notable scene is the first 'head pop'. It's such a shocking and graphic scene and has been referenced in quite a number of other movies including Wayne's World, a personal favorite of mine.

Scanners are people who have a sort of telepathic power that can take hold of others and make them do what they want. Darryl Revok is a rogue Scanner who is considered, by a certain specialized government agency, to be a telepathic terrorist. The above act triggers the agency to hire another scanner, Cameron Vale. Vale goes on a journey to find Revok, the journey takes him into a world that he never realized existed.

This was an amazing piece of work from Cronenberg. What else would I expect from this directors prime. It was graphic and intense. The music was jarring and kept you on the edge of your seat the entire time. The story is interesting and the theme is very involved. It's a great movie that showcases what a great director could do with what he had. I suggest this to anyone looking to expand their horizons. Some people will argue this isn't horror. I don't really know what their talking about. Pretty terrifying stuff.

I'm thinking of a number...
  • The movie was inspired by a chapter of William S. Burroughs' book Naked Lunch
  • The exploding head effect was done with a fake head filled with dog food and red paint and then shot with a 12 gauge shotgun... cool huhh
The money shot.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Human Monster (1939) - Walter Summers

Bela Lugosi turns in a fantastic performance. It is right on par with the exact same films that had made him famous like Dracula . My personal favorite being The Black Cat . Like the latter, this film suffered from poor circulation and lack of advertisement. Either that or the public wasn't interested in seeing Lugosi in anything else other than his famous bloodsucker. This film has a broad and well acted plot that was rich with detail.  Lugosi has two sides in this picture. His well loved and compassionate side. The other is a strict, brutal lone shark that acts as a sinister villain to blind and handicapped people. He really brutalizes his victims. It's a macabre message to pay your bills.  The film is slow moving and plagued by the usual setbacks from its time. Most of the nation wasn't really that concerned with horror at the time. But studios knew that they would always have an audience. This film is a prime example of that. It's sad because it's 
1 comment
Not scared yet? »

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t
Post a Comment
Not scared yet? »

Inseminoid (1981) - Norman J. Warren

What can be said for mindless schlock pictures like this one. They were pumped out in droves during the eighties. Inseminoid !? give me a break! It sounds like some pre-pubescent teenage boys came up with the title. On the plus side the movie isn't horrible to look at and it has a decent amount of gore. If you can separate yourself from the political incorrectness, then you might have a perfectly decent Sci-Fi Monster Feature.  A research team exploring caves on Jupiter accidentally awakens an ancient alien that rapes and impregnates one of the team members. She suffers from terrible shock and trauma, leading to a complete mental breakdown as her pregnancy accelerates faster and faster. Feeling threatened she decides to kill anyone she deems a threat. Can the rest of the research team survive or will they all become victims of INSEMINOID! Apparently this movie had a million dollar budget. That's really shocking considering the outcome of the picture. The acting
Post a Comment
Not scared yet? »