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Wederom een film van regisseur David Cronenberg wat in mijn ogen nog steeds een van zijn beste films is.


Scanners is a 1981 science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan. The film is about a corporation that attempts to use people with telepathic and telekinetic abilities for its own purposes.
Scanners are people with powerfully intense telepathic and telekinetic abilities. ConSec, a weaponry and security systems company, captures a homeless scanner named Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) at a shopping mall. Vale has been able to get by by using his telepathy to make people eating near him allow him to partake of their meals. Vale psychically overhears two women talking negatively about him, when suddenly one of them begins to convulse. Without knowing he is responsible for this, Vale attracts the attention of two ConSec agents. He supposedly possesses tremendous scanner power, which ConSec wants to exploit, but he has become a derelict because he cannot cope with the overload of hearing others' thoughts. Meanwhile, ConSec's last Scanner was brutally murdered at a press conference by Scanner renegade Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside). Revok escapes, killing five people.

Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan), the head of ConSec's Scanner Section, decides to infiltrate the Scanner Underworld by "converting" Vale and sending him to find Revok. At the same time, a new head of security, Braedon Keller (Lawrence Dane), joins ConSec. Ruth tells Vale that scanners can suppress their telepathic powers by injecting themselves with the drug Ephemerol and sends him to find Revok. The only lead is Benjamin Pierce (Robert A. Silverman), an artist who tried to kill his family as a child.

After discovering Pierce's address in a gallery exhibiting his morbid sculptures, Vale goes to visit him and finds him living in isolation. Revok, intent on killing all Scanners unwilling to join his renegade faction, sends four assassins to dispatch Pierce. Pierce is shot and killed, and Vale flings the assassins into unconsciousness. As Pierce is dying, Vale scans his mind and obtains information on where to find other Scanners.

Vale meets Kim Obrist (Jennifer O'Neill) and other Scanners who have adjusted to their powers by forming a mutual telepathic circle. The party is ambushed by Revok's assassins, who are killed by Obrist. All scanners but Vale and Obrist are killed trying to escape.

Vale infiltrates Revok's Ripe Program and finds out about a large quantity of Ephemerol being delivered. He and Kim go back to ConSec to inform Ruth. They find out that Keller is a traitor. Keller kills Ruth by Revok's orders. Vale and Obrist escape by scanning the ConSec guards. Vale then infiltrates the Ripe Program computers through a payphone. In a last attempt to kill Vale, Keller orders a group of computer scientists to make the program self-destruct as Vale is plugged into it. The plan backfires and the laboratory explodes, killing Keller.

Vale and Kim visit Dr. Frane, who has been prescribing Ephemerol to pregnant women. Kim is shocked that an unborn baby has scanned her. As they leave his office, they are ambushed by Revok and shot with tranquilizer darts. When Vale wakes up, he is in Revok's office. Revok tells him that they are brothers and that Scanners were the children of pregnant women who were prescribed Ephemerol. Revok reveals his plan to distribute Ephemerol and make an army of Scanners, inviting Vale to join him. Vale refuses and they battle through mind control. Vale's body is ravaged terribly by Revok's attacks to the point of burning, but before his body is destroyed completely, Vale takes aim at Revok and it is implied that he completely overwhelms him. Revok's eyes turn white and as he screams the scene suddenly cuts to black.