Scanners

Sit down, I want to show you something. When I first saw this on bleachy VHS, it really threw me for a loop. Seeing a pristine blu ray? This is a perfect movie. This is what Marvel movies could be. It’s this and Robocop on the top of the heap. This is what I want. Take it seriously. Scare me with how alien your ideas are but ground them in a fetishism for the details of your lived in world. I want to believe in your couch, your banister. Do not show me a false leather jacket. The camera captures people in places. You can do so much on top of that but you need to do that well. Set me on fire. Larry Dane, god what an incandescent voice. A rewatch of Rituals has become a dire priority. Of course, I’ll need to watch The Prisoner first. Stephen Lack is such a fucking name. Up there with John Nada.  I guess Lack is the fault of the movie but I think he works in the same way that Peter Weller dials down his inherent charm to go robo. Or I guess Alan Cumming doing Nightcrawler. Whatever. His eyes in the ultimate scene are perfect. He’s perfect for the movie.  EDIT: I have since learned about Stephen Lack and I’m tripling down on him. Anyways, this is definitely a culmination. The rewatch to this point has been immediately rewarding. I can see everything from the student films to The Brood reflected in Scanners. I can also see elements of future movies but damn if this doesn’t feel like a signature. Again, the Ballard influence is prime where you can see how this coexists with Crimes of the Future and Shivers and Rabid. It’s also very funny that Larry Cohen and Stephen King were on Cronenberg’s wavelength at this point even though people might not have seen that at the time. EDIT: the extras on the Criterion disk are mandatory. Six stars if I could.