What do you do when your sci-fi/thriller franchise stubbonly refuses to get any traction after three movies? Well, if you’re Pierre David, frequent David Cronenberg collaborator and committed purveyor of Scanners sequels, you slip on a police uniform, pin on a badge and reform your head-popping series of body horror, conspiracy thrillers into a low budget, super powered cop movie. Simple really.
While this bizarrely marketable conceit made perverse amount of sense, it also meant that we couldn’t have been further away from Cronenberg’s edgy, original concept – but then, after the dire Scanners 3: The Takeover, I guess that sliding the franchise behind the wheel of a squad car and having an officer burst skulls instead of busting perps made a certain amount of logic.
It was apparently time that the Scanners franchise got itself a brand new mindset.
Young street urchin, Samuel Staziak, has been living in a slum with his unbalanced, Scanner father, as they try to suppress their deadly, telepathic nature by taking their dwindling supply of pills that blocks their funky mind powers. However, the father is too far gone and after hallucinates that a bunch of baby heads are erupting from his noggin, uses his powers on the cops who arrive investigating the noise complaint. After the telepathic dust has settled, Sam’s father is dead and one of the officers involved, the hard bitten Pete Harrigan, adopts the child after he saved him from having his head explode like an over-cooked sausage.
Years pass and Sam, who has chemically suppressed his Scanning ability, soon emerges from the police academy a fresh faced rookie while his proud, adopted father has risen to to rank of Commander within the LAPD. However, Sam hitting the streets couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous/risky time as a rash of seemingly random and brutal attacks on police by normally law abiding citizens has been occuring all over the city.
The people responsible are the deranged neurosurgeon and cult leader wannabe, Dr. Karl Glock and his goth, fortune telling, henchwoman who are snatching people off the street and are brainwashing them to see their worse phobia whenever they encounter one of the boys in blue as an act of revenge.
Harrigan realizes that having his mind reading son on the force may prove to be the key to cracking this murderous crimewave, but while Sam may be happy to help, coming off the Scanner blocking Ephemeral may eventually prove to be disastrous as the more Sam uses his powers, the more the strain on his sanity will increase.
Possibly the most mind blowing aspect of Scanner Cop (aside from the actual blowing of minds, of course) is the fact that, despite the central concept screaming “dopey exploitation flick” directly into your ear with a megaphone, the movie somehow is the most watchable entry in the Scanner pantheon. Now, let me make it clear that Pierre David’s directorial debut is in no way as smart and thoughtful as Cronenberg’s original, its actually way more fun to watch in a pulpy, 90’s, sci-fi cop movie sort of way.
While many of you may scream blasphemy in my general direction, I’ve always believed that Scanners is one of Cronenberg’s lesser works chiefly because the conspiracy aspect drags a little and the film manages to peak mere minutes into its runtime by loading its opening scene with that spectacular exploding head. In comparison, Scanner Cop may be the dumb jock to Scanner’s edgy bookworm, but it’s also way more fun, funneling all the vein bulging body horror and moral quandaries into a lunk-headed, superhero cop movie that has a few, surprising tricks up its sleeves.
The main one proves to be how naturally making the lead Scanner a cop slots into the nature of the franchise, which takes the usual notion of a heroic Scanner fearing their powers (except the villains, of course) and flipping it to them being eager to use them for good as Sam uses it to flip violent gangbangers end over end or feed a photo fit directly into a computer by only using his overworked brain.
The injection of unapologetic pulp unbelievably works as the film flings off the trappings of the oh-so serious tone of the series that only served to highlight how stupid parts 2 & 3 were and embraces it like an old friend.
The plot is pure bobbins, seeing veteran B-movie baddie Richard Lynch as a neurosurgeon who diversified his portfolio into starting a cult involving illegal experimentation and who has vowed vengeance upon Sam’s father after having a section of his skull blown away as he tried to make his getaway. On top of that, he also comes complete with a metal plate in his head from the injury that helps him block Sam’s Scans and Hilary Sheppard’s gothic attired acolyte that fully drives home that we’re firmly in comic book territory.
In comparison, Daniel Quinn may not get to chew the scenery as much as the antagonists but he does get to get his chops around some choice, 90’s, cop dialogue (“Hey partner!” quips Sam after discovering a stash of coke hidden in bags of ice, “They have snow in their ice!”) and he gets to devote those watery eyes to some truly impressive gurning as he goes in so hard on the classic “Scanner glare”, you are genuinely worried that he’s going to either pop an embolism, shit his pants, or both.
Elsewhere, Richard Grove (Henry the Red from Army Of Darkness) channels Stacey Keach from under a Commissioner Gordon moustache, while Darlanne Fluegel barely has much to do except fret about Sam’s health while draped in a lab coat.
Probably the most thing about Scanner Cop is how it uses the expected splurges of bloated, hemorrhaging arteries and exploding brain matter in slightly more imaginative ways. Opening with the memorable image of a screaming man with baby heads adoring his hair line and including a bravura scene of Sam Scanning a dying assailant and being mentally dragged to hell as they expire, you can tell that this fourth installment is legitimately trying to make this work and, in the admittedly daffy world of low budget, 90’s sci-fi (it’s set in the most Canadian looking version of LA I’ve ever seen despite actually being shot entirely in California), it pretty much nails what it’s setting out to do.
Cheesier than necking a pint of nacho cheese through a straw made of purest cheddar, Scanner Cop nevertheless is a scrappy, fun, diversion that’s way better than you might think.
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