In these complicated times, the concept of a police officer who is able to alter people’s perceptions and even kill them with nothing more than a random thought is absolutely terrifying, yet back in the nineties it was an idea so rife with possibilities, that the entire Scanners franchise changed its entire direction in order to take advantage of such a no brainer of a hook.
Incredibly, Scanner Cop (well, what would you have called it) went on to be arguably the most fun of a franchise since David Cronenberg’s sober-toned original by adding cheesy cop vibes and low budget super heroics as it gave its rookie lead the abilities of Charles Xavier with the badge of Martin Riggs.
The result was stupid, sure, but it also was weirdly endearing in a direct-to-video way as this T.J Hooker with added body horror provided enough high points to actually get a sequel made – but did the return of the Scanner Cop blow our minds in the right way, or the extremely messy way that the franchise has favoured thus far…
Sam Staziak is still plying his trade as the only L.A. cop on the force that’s also a Scanner; a rare breed of homo sapien that also has the ability to read, manipulate and control minds to the extent that he could cause extreme bodily harm if he wished, but as he’s a good Scanner, he spends his time thwarting terrorist bombs rather than brainwashing people to admit to crimes so he can take the day off early.
However, unbeknownst to him, an old enemy and fellow Scanner by the name of Karl Volkin has escaped from the mental institution and has discovered a brand new power – he finds that he can drain the lifeforce of other Scanners in order to add their powers to his own and now is on a rampage throughout the city sucking Scanners dry and leaving gooey, steaming husks in his wake.
After preying on a Scanner pick pocket, he moves his way up to Carrie Goodart, a Scanner who legally deals in the drug, Ephemorol, the compound that not only created Scanners generations earlier, but is now used to dull the effects in order to prevent the craziness the powers can often bring. Putting Carrie into shock and leeching the names and addresses of his next “meals” out if her computer, he targets Sam in order to get vengence for his brother that Staziak killed during a home invasion years earlier.
Meanwhile, Sam has a few other things on his plate other than an overcoat wearing Scanner-sucker as he’s finally discovered the identity of his birth mother and building up the confidence to go see her. However if Sam doesn’t get his priorities in order, his long lost mother may be the latest in a long line of desicated corpses that Volkin is using to top up his power bar.
As much of a pleasant surprise Scanner Cop was, the idea of a cop with zappy brain powers apparently wasn’t enough to sustain a spin-off franchise for more than one movie as the energetic change of pace of the previous film gives way to the more predictable and tired tropes of a cop vs. killer movie. Volkin essentially is the plot as his arrival and his subsequent leveling up at the expense of his victims takes up the lion’s share of the running time much in the same way Nicholson’s Joker, Carrey’s Riddler and others bogarted the first four Batman movies, leaving our hero with nothing to do except tey and catch him.
Concidering that no one is coming to a low budget, sci-fi thriller called Scanner Cop 2 expecting a nuanced examination of good and evil, this wouldn’t be that much of an issue – however, considering that Patrick Kilpatrick’s Volkan is your typical crush, kill, destroy villain right out of the cinematic supervillain playbook, there’s not much here to keep us interested.
Kilpatrick is a seasoned, on screen bad guy who has been defeated by Hollywood’s best and brightest – well, Van Damme, Segal and *checks notes* Free Willy – but there isn’t really anything more to Volkan than a scary coat, the fact that he’s prone to reliving his brother’s death while laying splay-legged in a bath and the ability to somehow be underlit no matter where he chooses to stand in any given room. In fact, the only thing that makes him stand out at all is that his methods of draining the power out of other Scanners gives special effects guru John Carl Buchler to deliver some shamelessly gruesome meltdowns that sees their victims reduced to puss squirting husks despite weirdly keep their hair noticably perfect.
With the focus taken of him, Daniel Quinn’s Staziak has to stretch to make an impact, but aside from an opening action scene that sees our hero dismantle a terrorist cell by melting their headsets to their ears (let’s see John McClane try that), he’s reduced to running around in his nemesis’ wake while stressing about how to bring his quarry down. It’s a missed opportunity because due to some odd choices made by the script, his recklessness with his Scanning skills could sparked up have a nice little theme involving the use of power. Instead we get Staziak happily mutilating criminals, nearly popping a civilian’s skull like bubble wrap while engaging in a mental tug of war with Volkan, nearly killing his romantic lead by forcing a description of her attacker out of her while she slumbers in a coma and, most amusingly of all, puppeteers the corpses of innocent victims to fool his enemy into tearing them apart instead of him and you can’t help but feel that our hero might be a little drunk with power.
Of course, the big problem that comes from your action hero having mind powers is that whenever he encounters an issue, all he has to do is just stare at it and so when your villain has the same powers, you’d better break out some filmmaking finesse lest all you action sequences end up with your good guy glaring at things while looking like their desperately trying to hold in a particularly violent fart. Unfortunately, no one seems to have told director Steve Barnett who is content to just aim a camera at both Quinn and Kilpatrick as they gurn so excessively while pushing out there respective forehead veins you don’t know whether to be worried that both actors are either going to have a full on aneurysm or, at the very least, aggressively shit their pants.
Vaguely fun on a basic, 90s, direct-to-video level and featuring some imaginative gore (the woman partially dragged through the grating of her screen door is a cracker) Scanner Cop 2: The Showdown nevertheless fails to generate the previous movie’s enthusiasm for the central notion of a law abiding brain buster.
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