Pacionsbo
Absolutely Fantastic
BeSummers
Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Leofwine_draca
This surprisingly enjoyable B-movie is a cut above most efforts from the early 1990s, thanks to a plot which takes the series in a new, interesting direction, plenty of gore and violence, and some decent acting. It's a movie with no pretensions which really packs in the groceries when it comes to gory action - I've never seen so many policemen get violently murdered in a single film! You know exactly what you're going to get with a film like this and it doesn't disappoint.The opening is admittedly cheesy, with a scene where a hallucinating man sees lots of little screaming faces appear in his forehead (nice effects, but there's something just too rubbery about it). After this arresting sight, things slow down in pace as we are introduced to the film's main hero, played by Daniel Quinn. Quinn is very charismatic in his role of the cop, torn between wanting a normal life and using his special powers as a method to fight crime. In fact, I really liked his performance and most of the performances in this film - some, like Richard Lynch's, are deliberately over the top yet still highly amusing. Hilary Shepard is an alluring femme fatale, while Richard Grove provides solid support. Only the introduction of Darlanne Fluegel as an unnecessary love interest rings false - her character is completely worthless to this film's development.The film focuses on a series of violent murders committed by members of the public who have been "programmed" to kill officers on sight. The unwilling murderers hallucinate that their worst fears are in front of them (bugs, gang members, etc.) leading them to attack with extreme violence. Of course, this is just an excuse for the special effects guys to show as many different monstrous beasties as possible. All of the classic 'scanning' action is saved for the film's finale, where the grue really flies.One clever scene has our cop hero scanning a dead woman - and following her soul down into hell. This scene is actually pretty highbrow for a simple film like this. There's a grand total of one exploding head, which is nice and meaty, and lots of disturbing imagery of asylum patients abusing themselves. The build-up to the ending is rushed and full of plot holes (including one of those staple moments from the Bond films and many others, where the chief villain traps the hero and leaves them to a fate worse than death, only for the hero to escape in the nick of time). However the final hospital battle is an intense one, with full of gooey bits and even some brief, effective stop-motion thrown into the brew. It finishes with the baddie's metal head-plate blasting from his skull in a spectacular fashion. SCANNER COP may not be an epic, but it sure is a lot of fun.
gsh999
Really far exceeded my expectations.The lead actor is quite good and did not annoy me like so many actors have a tendency to do.I will agree that the opening scene special effects were very poor, with a dolls head popping out of latex on a guy's forehead. But after that, the effects were not as embarrassing.The evil guy, played by the same guy who plays villains in many horror movies, is really good, too. The female evil partner is very hot and convincing. She looks like the black widow type.Pete, the cop who adopts the scanner is very good too.I was surprised by the decent acting and cool effects after the opening scene. Most hardcore horror fans will get a kick out of this one.
FieCrier
Pretty disposable sequel of sorts to the Scanners series. I've only seen the first Scanners film, which I didn't think was one of Cronenberg's better ones.Anyway, in this one a poor father and son are taking drugs to suppress their abilities as scanners, but have run out for lack of money. The father is going crazy, hallucinating, and becoming violent. The police arrive, and the father gets killed. The boy gets adopted by one of the cops.Years later, the boy is now a cop and his father the Commander. Throughout the city, ordinary people are killing cops without provocation. They're seeing the cops as things they fear. The Commander hopes that his son would be willing to go off his medication to try to use his abilities as a scanner to find out what is going on.There are a couple head explosions (something memorable from the first Scanners), but mostly the psychic powers are used here to read minds, or throw people through the air.There's a Scanner Cop II, oddly also known as Scanners IV when it should seemingly be the fifth one, if this is the fourth. Evidently Scanners is also being remade; really, Hollywood, enough of the remakes of horror movies already!
Infofreak
I really didn't expect ANYTHING from 'Scanner Cop', and only rented it to see two of my favourites Richard Lynch ('Open Season', 'The Ninth Configuration', 'Little Nikita') and the late Brion James ('Blade Runner', 'Crimewave', 'Tango & Cash') on screen together. The bad news is that they never share a scene, and that James only has a pointless cameo of around two minutes. The good news is that the movie is surprisingly enjoyable above average b-grade sci-fi action.Daniel Quinn ('Wild At Heart') plays a young man with "scanner" powers who has been adopted by a kindly cop (Richard Grove - 'Army Of Darkness'). The movie begins showing how to two met but quickly flashes forward fifteen years with Quinn's first day as a rookie cop, Grove by this stage being police Commander. Cops, including Quinn's partner, suddenly begin getting murdered by seemingly normal citizens. Quinn finds himself on the trail of the criminal mastermind behind this fiendish plan (yup, you guessed it, it's Richard Lynch), but to do so he must stop taking the medication which suppresses his scanner powers. By doing this he risks permanent damage and possible insanity, so the case becomes a race against the clock, and one he can't afford to lose.Stupid but fun, with Lynch at his most villainous, and having a hammy good time.
