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Scanners
Sign in to saveScanners is a 1981 Canadian science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. The film stars include Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Michael Ironside, Lawrence Dane and Patrick McGoohan. In the film, "scanners" are psychics with telepathic and telekinetic powers. ConSec, a purveyor of weaponry and security systems, searches out scanners to use them for its own purposes. The film's plot concerns the attempt by Darryl Revok (Ironside), a renegade scanner, to wage a war against ConSec. Another scanner, Cameron Vale (Lack), is dispatched by ConSec to stop Revok.
OverviewAI-generated
Scanners is a 1981 Canadian thriller, science fiction, mystery, and horror film directed by and written by David Cronenberg. The cast includes Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Patrick McGoohan, and Michael Ironside. The movie was produced by Pierre David, with music by Howard Shore, cinematography by Mark Irwin, and editing by Ronald Sanders. It was filmed in Montreal and Toronto and is set in Canada.
The film has a runtime of 103 minutes and was released on January 14, 1981, with subsequent releases in January, March, and April of that year. It was produced by Filmplan International, the Canadian Film Development Corporation, and the Montreal Trust Company of Canada. The original language is English. It is followed by Scanners II: The New Order and is part of the Scanners Collection.
Critical reception includes a review score of 70%, 6.7 out of 10, and 60 out of 100. It received a Saturn Award for Best International Film. The production budget was 4,100,000, resulting in a box office revenue of 14,225,876. The film has an aspect ratio of 16:9.
Synthesized by Vinony from 37 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, IMDb. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film · TMDB
6.7A scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called 'scanning' to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non-Scanners.
Cast
- Stephen Lack as Cameron Vale
- Jennifer O'Neill as Kim Obrist
- Michael Ironside as Darryl Revok
- Patrick McGoohan as Dr. Paul Ruth
- Lawrence Dane as Braedon Keller
- Robert A. Silverman as Benjamin Pierce
Themes
- mind control
- telepathy
- paranormal phenomena
- telekinesis
- murder
- psychic power
- mind reading
- scientist
- exploding head
- drugs
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Key facts
- Film.name
- Scanners
- Film.image
- Scanners.jpg
- Film.caption
- Theatrical release poster
- Film.director
- David Cronenberg
- Film.producer
- Claude Héroux
- Film.writer
- David Cronenberg
- Film.music
- Howard Shore
- Film.cinematography
- Mark Irwin
- Film.editing
- Ronald Sanders
- Film.studio
- Filmplan International
- Film.runtime
- 103 minutes
- Film.country
- Canada
- Film.language
- English
- Film.budget
- CAD$4.1 million
- Film.gross
- $6.3 million / $14.2 million
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- film
- Genre
- action film
- Country of origin
- Canada
- Original language
- English language
- Followed by
- Scanners II: The New Order
- Director
- David Cronenberg
- Screenwriter
- David Cronenberg
- Cast member
- Leon Herbert
- Composer
- Howard Shore
- Cinematographer
- Mark Irwin
- Narrative location
- Canada
- Filming location
- Toronto
- Duration
- 103
- FilmAffinity ID
- 774018
Show 7 more facts
- publication date
- 1982-01-21
- film editor
- Ronald Sanders
- title
- Scanners
- aspect ratio (W:H)
- 16:9
- review score
- 60/100
- box office
- 14225876
- assessment
- Bechdel test
Sources (11)
via Wikidata · CC0
~19 min read
Encyclopedic overview
22 sectionsContents
- Plot
- Cast
- Production
- Financing
- Filming
- Effects
- Release
- Reception
- Box-office
- Critical response
- Accolades
- Soundtrack
- Legacy
- Sequels
- Spin-offs
- Canceled remake
- Television series
- See also
- References
- Works cited
- Further reading
- External links
Scanners is a 1981 Canadian science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. The film stars include Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Michael Ironside, Lawrence Dane and Patrick McGoohan. In the film, "scanners" are psychics with telepathic and telekinetic powers. ConSec, a purveyor of weaponry and security systems, searches out scanners to use them for its own purposes. The film's plot concerns the attempt by Darryl Revok (Ironside), a renegade scanner, to wage a war against ConSec. Another scanner, Cameron Vale (Lack), is dispatched by ConSec to stop Revok.
Scanners premiered in January 1981 to lukewarm reviews from critics but became one of the first films produced in Canada to successfully compete with American films at the international box office. It brought Cronenberg and his controversial style of body horror attention to mainstream film audiences for the first time and has since been reevaluated as a cult classic. It is particularly well known for a scene that depicts Revok psychically causing a rival scanner's head to graphically explode.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Scanners” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.