WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Scanners 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.000 Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.799 This is Rob Land and I'm Joe McCormick. And today's 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:23.280 selection is the nineteen eight one Canadian sci fi horror 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:28.600 thriller Scanners, directed by David Cronenberg. Film that I first 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.440 became aware of because it was much beloved by my 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.080 dad when I was young. I remember being a little kid, like, 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.080 I think, sort of hearing my dad needle my mom 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.840 by being like, remember Scanners, um, And so long before 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.400 I ever saw it, I knew the one thing that 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.440 everybody knew about this movie, which is that Scanners is 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.000 a movie in which a guy's head explodes, which means 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.960 Scanners is a certain type of film, and that type 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.920 is the film that is apparently widely known for one 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:05.560 thing that happens in it, for one particularly shocking, horrifying, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:11.119 or otherwise uniquely salient scene or moment, whereas the rest 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.759 of the film is much less known. I think this 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:16.319 might be like the prime example of that. So, like, 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.520 if you mentioned Scanners to most people, I think maybe 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:22.520 the majority of people will be able to say, like, 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:24.760 oh yeah, and't that the movie where a dude's head 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.839 blows up, but not many people will know anything else 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.880 about it. I was trying to think of other examples 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.360 of this, Uh, like the kind of movie that is 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.520 mostly known for like one moment or scene in isolation, 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.199 and people don't remember that much else. Multiple Ridley Scott 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.120 movies come to mind. Uh. I I am generally very 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.280 intimately familiar with Alien because I've watched a bajillion times, 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.040 but I think that's sort of one of them. It's 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.800 a movie where a monster bursts out of a guy's 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.600 chest at the dinner table, and maybe most people know 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.559 that but don't know anything else. Rachel suggested another Ridley 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:01.800 Scott move, of the Thelma and Louise. It is the 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.160 movie where a car goes over a cliff. Yeah. Like, 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.040 I don't think I've seen Thelma and Louise, but I've 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:10.359 seen that scene, you know, Like that scene has been 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.400 presented to me, Parodies of that scene have been presented, 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.200 and therefore I feel like I know Filmo and Louise, 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.440 even though I do not. A one that came to 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.240 mind for me. A more recent example might be Gamma 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.960 Do Tours The Shape of Water, the movie in which 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.520 a woman and a fishman make love, albeit I think 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.040 tastefully an off screen if I'm remembering correctly, or one 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.520 of those two things. Um, but but that's the film 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.400 where there's a lot more going on there, and then 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.000 I think it's a pretty solid picture. But that was 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:41.960 the thing that was, you know, showing up in late 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.800 night monologues and so forth. In other ways, I think 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.480 you might look at films like Basic Instinct and Bad 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.280 Lieutenant that can come to mind for for other reasons 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:53.680 that people would call them out for, Oh, there's this 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.200 one scene where something happens, um and in a backwards 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.200 way to channel another fishman movie. The promotional material for 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:05.840 nineteen eighties Screamers, which was the US Corman re release 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.919 of an Italian film, Island of the Fishmen, uh tried 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.079 to promote itself as the movie in which a man 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.600 turns inside out, despite no such scene occurring in the 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:19.560 motion picture. That's a good idea that the I can't 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.680 think of. Another example would be like if Scammer Scammers 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.320 Scanners was known as the movie where Ahead explodes, but 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.760 it didn't actually happen in the movie. Yeah, that would 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.040 that would be really really lame. Whereas in reality, I mean, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.760 they knew they had a great scene there. I was 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.240 reading that originally that scene was going to happen first, 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:42.280 but given the cinema and movie going culture of the time, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.800 they knew It's like, well, people gonna come in late. Um, 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.560 I guess they put anyone who's watching films at the 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.720 theater in. Please tell me. I'm assuming there were fewer trailers, 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.240 because now you've got a solid half hour of trailers. 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:57.840 But the concern was at the time, well, people are 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.280 gonna come in late, They're gonna miss our key scene. 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:02.520 We've got to offset it a bit with some other 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.200 introductory and material. I mean, it is a really great scene. 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.920 So anyway, I grew up hearing about this movie in 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.960 the terms previously described. I saw it at some point 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.560 after which I thought it was a cool, creepy thriller. 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.760 I had, you know, modestly positive feelings about it. I 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.440 also thought there were a few elements that didn't work 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:23.200 so well, and they were some of the same elements 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.159 that have been criticized by critics, especially when the movie 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.080 initially came out, but in the intervening years, I think 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.840 critics who have looked back on Scanners have had a 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:37.719 more robustly positive appraisal of it, and I found myself 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.279 having having exactly the same reaction. On my most recent rewatch, 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:46.039 I gained a much more unqualified appreciation for it. I 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.320 think Scanners is just just awesome, and some of the 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.200 criticisms or the things about it I used to criticize, 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.400 I now actually think our strengths. This movie is so 0:04:55.480 --> 0:05:00.480 much more than an exploding head. Oh absolutely, and I 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.000 I was also surprised at how well it held up 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.960 and and how much I enjoyed it. In past viewings, 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.000 I think I had that similar experience where it's like, well, 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.000 there's a lot of great things going on here, but A, 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:12.960 B and C don't really work for me all that well. 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.240 I think for the most part, my criticisms were somewhat 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:20.120 dulled in my my recent rewatch of the film. So 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.480 it's gonna be fun to get into all that now. 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.280 You were talking about your your dad being a fan 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.279 of it and talking about the exploding head, and all 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.120 I have to say from my part, before I even 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.840 knew there was an exploding head scene in this movie, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.560 my earliest memories were of the box art at the 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:38.760 VHS rental store and the poster for it, which I 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:40.480 think would have also been on the wall of the 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.760 VHS rent Oalds store, because this alone really freaked me out. 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:49.080 Chef Kiss, Yeah, this is the one you see. You 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.240 see this in a lot of the current materials for 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.719 the film. This is the one that shows Michael Ironside's 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:58.279 character and just full rending, like straight limbed scanner mode. 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:03.720 Uh nearly like a full body representation, just completely scanning out. 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:08.160 It's just absolutely terrifying. It represents, of some it's supposed 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.440 to represent the way the character looks in the final 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.520 showdown of the picture, which is in and of itself 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:18.520 a horrifying sequence. I would say more horrifying, maybe less shocking, 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.960 but more horrifying than the headburst scene. This art, I 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:24.680 had to look it up. This is apparently post art 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.560 by Joe Anne Dailey, who is credited with some other 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.400 really awesome VHS ara poster in box art stuff like 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.679 creep Show, Popcorn, Prison Prisons, one that I never saw, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:40.440 but I remember distinctly this weird like skull prison looking 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.960 VHS box art. Oh yeah, she did something truly amazing here. 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.320 So it is representing the scene where like the veins 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.640 are popping out and all that, but there's also just, um, 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.400 there's an aura around Michael Ironside and the way that 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.800 all of the textures of his skin and clothes and 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.680 his hair or like they're like right sing up off 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.960 of him, as if he's literally sublimating, like his body 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:08.679 is is so hot it's turning into a gas. Yeah, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.480 And there's this it's not even like a subtext to 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.200 it because like the post art, some of the poster 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.360 art and the lobby cards I was pulling up for it, 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.280 it has the taglines on it like ten seconds the 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.240 pain begins, fifteen seconds you can't breathe, twenty seconds you explode. 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.680 It's saying, look at this horrible vision of a man. 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.720 This could happen to you. Watch this movie to find 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:33.000 out why. That's what happens when you combine pop rocks 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.200 and and uh PEPSI right. Yeah. But at the same 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.520 time you have this poster really does capture I think 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.760 that a lot of the shocking imagery of that final 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.680 scanner showdown this vision of psychic power as this thing 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.400 that kind of channels violently through you and will have 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.000 left unchecked, just completely destroy you. In the process. It 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.560 reminds me a bit of them, which of course came 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.800 out a decade later. Toby Hooper is spontaneous combustion that 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.160 we talked about on the show. Yeah, um, yeah, I 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.040 see the similarity. Though I have to say I think 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.520 The Scanners is in a league above spontaneous Combustion. But yes, 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.920 I see what you're talking about. Yeah, but but both 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.160 films do have a similarity and that they're both films 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:19.280 where psychic powers of different types are dangerous to everyone 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.160 that there. This is this wild, unchecked energy and also 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:29.280 has potentially disastrous effects for the individual that is experiencing them. Yes, 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.679 all right, Joe, what's your elevator pitch for this film? 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.719 All right? Cameron Vale can hear people's thoughts and it 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.319 makes his life a living hell. He wanders the underground 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.400 malls of Canada as a miserable outcast until he meets 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.000 a mysterious scientist who informs him that he is a 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:52.160 Scanner and there are others like him. But instead of 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:56.040 a community of brothers and sisters, Cameron discovers a secret 0:08:56.120 --> 0:09:02.840 war and now the war has discovered him. That's pretty good. Yeah, 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.719 that secret war is key to it, Like and that's 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:07.319 I think one of the things that works so well 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:09.280 about this film is there are all these different layers 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.079 of intrigue to it as you proceed through the picture. Well, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:17.320 I would say, actually, the secret War is um something 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.240 that I really noticed on this viewing of it. It 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.720 really stood out to me as a shared theme between 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:29.920 Scanners and one of Cronenberg's other big movies, Videodrome, because 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.600 if you think about it, both movies are about a 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:38.240 naive protagonist who gets inadvertently swept up into an ongoing 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.840 secret conflict between at least two existing factions or forces, 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.560 which I'm not sure why, but that in itself is 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.559 just like a really exciting, almost intoxicating plot dynamic. It's 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.760 specifically the thing about the fact that, like, the conflict 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.840 is ongoing and it's done by these powerful forces, but 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:02.160 it's like invisible to to all regular people. Uh And 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.000 uh so you know, Videodrome and the cathode ray Mission 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.360 are already out there, they're plotting their campaigns against one another, 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.320 but somehow the war has remained in the shadows, and 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.080 suddenly the main character is made aware of it and 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.679 sucked into it and is being played by one side 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.280 against the other. And in the case of scanners, the 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:24.240 secret war is between an amoral arms manufacturer or arms 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.160 manufacturing and security firm, and that's consact. And then on 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.520 the other hand you have this murderous front of the 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.480 scanner underground. Yeah, and I love how the players in 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.680 this game and the secret war, if you will, they're 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:41.720 not nation states, they're not governmental agencies. They're corporations and um, 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:46.720 social movements and uh and in rogue organizations that again 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.079 are just kind of all in the not even all 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:50.720 in the underworld, like some of it is in a 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.160 corporate boardroom, you know, that kind of setting. And I guess, 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.120 I guess that does kind of match up with some 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.600 overarching themes that you see in media from the eighties. 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.640 You see it in cyberpunk, see it, and uh in 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.760 various other pictures where it's yeah, we're in this this 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:09.559 this realm, where it's it's corporations against corporation and and 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.040 these other entities. I think Um Cronenberg and and also 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.480 William Gibson are both have both proven themselves of the 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.880 is really good at it also integrating these uh yeah, 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.600 the social movements, artists and other things into these weird 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.959 views of the future and of course of the present. Now, um, 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.360 I mentioned one of the taglines for the picture, actual 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.040 taglines for the picture earlier, but uh, here are just 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.720 a few more. There's of course, their thoughts can kill. 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.160 That's kind of what the picture is about. Also, there 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.520 are four billion people on Earth two d and thirty 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.880 seven or scanners. I like that. That's kind of cherry 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.040 picked from the screenplay that's referring to a part in 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:52.360 the film. They're kind of bending it a little bit, 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.319 but it gives it that kind of provocative feeling that 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.080 that works well with the tagline. Yeah, I don't know 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.319 if that's actually accurate to the script because I think 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.079 the number is two d and thirty six, and that 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.480 comes from the list of known scanners, the ones that 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:08.640 are known to concept, but there are other ones that 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.640 are not known to them. Yeah, and and also it's 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.440 not just like this is the percentage of the human 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:15.600 population that are just going to be scanners. We find 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.840 out why there are scanners in the picture. But the 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:20.960 one that really stood out to me this time is 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.880 you were about to experience the outer reaches of future shock, 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.319 and that of course that taglines obviously invoking the nineteen 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.599 seventy Toffler book Future Shock. Uh, And it's one that 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.600 I hadn't run across before regarding this picture, But it 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.400 really got me thinking about this film in a different 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.160 light because Future Shock just remind everyone, and it was 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:47.079 this this concept that essentially you were dealing with, or 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.640 would be dealing with, a kind of trauma brought on 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.920 by rapid advances and technology that would outstrip our ability 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.560 to understand them or change with them. Um, So don't 0:12:57.559 --> 0:12:59.960 don't think of it necessarily as some sort of like 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.760 a movie future shock, like a technology is advancing too 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.040 quickly and I my head explode, But more of a 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.520 of a like a cultural malaise even But I wonder 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.200 if if the scanner, that the individual that is a 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.120 scanner in this picture is in some ways kind of 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.800 a physical embodiment of this idea of future Shock. They're 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.000 they're changed, they're potentially dehumanized in the process of this change, 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.960 and they run the risk of being less than themselves 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.600 and more of a conduit in the film by doing nothing, 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.199 one man is almost reduced to a kind of zombie state, 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.680 and other becomes a monster, and two other characters we 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.680 meet are able to channel this change into creation and community, 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:45.040 but it's like they're all dealing with it in different ways. Yeah, yeah, well, 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.160 I mean I think about one reaction too, if you 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:49.600 take the concept of future shock seriously, I think one 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.719 of the most common reactions to it actually is a 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:58.080 kind of disengagement or listlessness that comes from the fact that, like, 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.360 if you can't understand the force is that are driving 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.720 the world, it just kind of makes it feel like 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.520 it's pointless to try to do anything or change anything 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.240 because you don't you don't understand how the machine works, 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.640 so you know, why would you even try to mess 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:15.480 with it? Um and I I see similar themes running 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.840 around in scanners, like the idea that you your agency 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.200 can be removed when there are forces governing your life 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:27.720 that you don't understand. Yeah. Absolutely, all right, let's go ahead, 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.720 and here's some trailer audio for this one. In this case, 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.000 we're drawing on the actual radio spot, which is a 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.280 lot of fun because everything is audio. This is the 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.320 audio as it's intended. You are not supposed to glimpse 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:46.960 and exploding head in this trailer. Ten seconds the pain begins, 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:53.000 and your flesh and your brain fifteen seconds. You can't breathe, 0:14:54.840 --> 0:15:01.119 It chokes you, it destroys you. Twenty seconds, Yeah, you explode. 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:08.720 Experience the terrified of Scanners. Their thoughts can kill. RATEDAR 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:16.480 restricted under seventeen, not admit about parent. I like this 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:20.880 radio trailer too, because it's again a very sonic experience 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:23.800 that I think delivers on some of the the just 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.960 the excellent music and sound effects in this picture that 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:31.640 help bring about this weird, creepy, psychic feeling. The movie 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:33.840 that only has good music, but I would say the 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:38.040 sound design is really important in Oh, I don't know, 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.000 moments that feel less like music but more just kind 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.480 of like the pulses and throbbing and drone sounds that 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:49.560 occur when the scanning session is taking place. Absolutely now, 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.800 before we get into the plot. Just if you're wondering, well, 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.520 where can I watch Scanners? Well, it's widely available. You 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.720 can streain this one, purchase it, rent it very many 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.760 places in eating as part of the Criterion collection. This 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.160 one's uh up. This one's cemented in the collection alongside 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.520 the likes of Fiend Without a Face. That's wonderful. I 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.320 like when a film that was initially regarded by reviewers 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.440 as as trash or as just you know, some scummy 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:19.200 bit of garbage. It gets the Criterion stamp of approval. Yeah. Yeah, 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.040 because you look back on writings about Cronenberg during this 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.280 time period and a lot of times that he's treated 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.480 with a sense of danger, like this is a dangerous 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.880 weirdo they're letting make films, um and do we dare 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.880 watch it ourselves? And to a large extent, I feel 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.640 like we're past that, Like we've seen the uh, this 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.880 this full career by Cronenberg, a career that's still ongoing, 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.200 and we have a more complete understanding of what his 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.120 sensibilities are and yet many of them are weird. Um. 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.240 But I guess there's less of a feeling of this 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.800 is a dangerous man making dangerous films. And yet in 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.080 Rewatching Scanners, I could definitely feel some of that. It's 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.560 especially in the final showdown between our our main Scanner characters, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:05.040 that there was an unhinged, unsafe energy to it. I mean, 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.640 I I love his films by and large, but yeah, 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:12.480 it's it's hard to maintain that illusion of absolute danger 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.280 after you've seen his scene in Jason X, for one, 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.720 and after you've seen his hair yes, it's it's a 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.200 marvelous head of hair. All right, Well, let's talk about 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.760 him a little more in depth. Yeah, David Cronenberg, the 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:30.080 director and writer this picture born yree as of this recording, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.360 very much still alive and still making films, thank goodness. Yeah, 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.800 what what can you say? Legendary Canadian master of the weird, 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.200 profit of the New flesh. His first full length film 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:45.120 was nineteen sixty nine Stereo, and from there he went 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.159 on to direct nineteen seventies Crimes of the Future and 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.679 a whole string of TV projects before returning to the 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.600 weird with nineteen seventy five Shivers, followed by nineteen seventy 0:17:54.640 --> 0:18:01.560 seven's Rabid and also the Norman Nine racing movie Fast Company. Um, 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.359 that's what I was actually tempted to do on the 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.560 show here, because we've been kind of building up to 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.439 actually doing a David Cronenberg film on a podcast series 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.680 about weird films. It seems like it shouldn't have taken 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.239 us two years to get here, but it's we had 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.320 to pick the right one, And for a little bit there, 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.800 I was thinking, well, we almost can't pick a regular 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.480 Cronenberg film. We should just do Fast Company. Yeah, there's 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:26.720 a lot of I mean, like, I think we tend 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.600 toward movies that are a little bit like funnier or 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.159 more fun to discuss, And a lot of Cronenberg movies 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.760 are really fascinating, but they're also like really downers. They're 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.760 like really bummers in one way or another. Um, I 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.000 think Scanners is not quite that. So it's on it's 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.480 on the lighter side of even as dark as it is, 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.400 it's on the lighter side of the Cronenberg spectrum. Yeah 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:50.480 you would. I don't think you would ever describe Scanners 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.600 as fun, but it's but compared to the larger philmography 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.080 of Cronenberg, yeah, it's it's it's on the fun end 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.560 of the spectrum. Anyway. After Fast Company, that's when he 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:02.800 did a trio of films that kind of, I feel like, 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.879 kind of set the tone for Cronenberg Weirdness, The Brood, Scanners, 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.960 and Video Drome, all three of those between nineteen eighty three. 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.359 He followed these up with nineteen eighty three Stephen King 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.919 adaptation The Dead Zone. Uh. He did one episode of 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:23.439 Friday the Thirteenth, the series Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch ninety 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:29.719 three s M. Butterfly Existence two thousand two Spider, and 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.200 from here he drifted more into I guess serious crime drama, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.480 violent crime drama for a spell there with two thousand 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.560 five History of Violence in Eastern Promises. Then he did 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.440 a Dangerous Method and uh, and then Cosmopolis. But at 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:46.880 this point, oh, there's also a map what a map 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.600 of the Stars I think is in there as well. Um, 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:51.840 but now he's back to his roots. He's returned to 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.479 his roots with two Crimes of the Future, which I'm 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.119 to understand has no actual connection to uh, the nineteen 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.240 seventy film c Times of the Future beyond the title. 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.080 But yeah, he's he's he's back working on weird films again. 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:08.160 I mean not I guess they're all weird films, but 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:13.080 certainly weird speculative films. And I believe his upcoming picture 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.240 is going to be about Communion with the Dead. Okay, 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:19.920 which was I've never seen it, but as exist Ends, 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.480 the one that I've heard described as just a remake 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.840 of Video Drone but with video games instead of TV. Yeah, 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.040 I think that's that's that's a pretty fair statement. Now 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.040 I haven't seen it, probably in twenty years, but I 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.840 remember it having that kind of like, uh, you know, 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.280 creepy new flesh vibe, but with game cartridges and weird 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.000 uh flesh guns and so forth. I just bring that 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.399 up because it's the video games, of which I think 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.120 has got to be like the funniest era of games ever, 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:55.359 like the Nintendo sixty four PlayStation one kind of era, 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.600 like those early three D games that if you look 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:02.080 at any game from at here and now, chances are 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.320 it's gonna be hilarious. Yeah, unless you had a Cronenberg 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.000 sixty four. Now that now that was a console. You 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:12.800 took your cartridge and you uh you just I shouldn't 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.639 explain how it all worked anyway. Scanners is based on 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.119 a couple of different psychic scripts that he apparently had 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.800 going in the late seventies, the Sensitives and Telepathy two thousand. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.040 These were apparently both films he was going to pitch 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:28.639 to Roger Corman and uh. This whole thing, though, was 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.920 rushed into production to take advantage of Canadian tax subsidies 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:35.480 at the time, so uh, he was apparently writing scenes 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.960 for Scanners, oftentimes the morning before they would film later 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:41.440 in the day, so it made for a rather demanding 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:43.719 production overall, I think there may have also been some 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:48.240 issues as some conflict between some of the cast members, 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.480 if I'm to understand correctly. Uh So, I don't think 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.480 it's necessarily film that Cronerberg himself looks back on as 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.200 being like, you know, this this great experience. And maybe 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.880 I mean, when if we considering it being a film 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.840 that was that was rushed, maybe you can see some 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:07.520 of the rush and the resulting picture. But I don't 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.280 know it it's still pretty solid. I don't know. Yeah, 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.720 I mean I would say that the writing is actually 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:18.120 quite good. I think, yeah, yeah, there's maybe one speculative 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:20.520 leap that doesn't work so well, but we'll we'll get 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:23.400 to them. I know exactly what you're talking about. We'll 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.680 get there. Yeah. But yeah, this film certainly made its mark, 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.560 and not everyone understood it at the time. Um it uh, 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:33.919 some of the critics didn't get it, but it it 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:37.280 earned its place in in cinematic history and certainly developed 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:41.879 a cult following and garnered what four sequels over the years, 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.520 I think two proper Scanner sequels and then also to 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:50.640 Scanner cop films. Yeah, I think I've seen all the sequels, 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.240