WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Scanners 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.360 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:10.640 This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:12.400 Rob and I are out a few days this week, 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.320 so we are bringing you some episodes from the vault. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.960 This episode of Weird House Cinema originally aired on January sixth, 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:24.360 twenty twenty three, and it's our episode on David Cronenberg's Scanners. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.000 Yeah, yeah, this is a great one. This is like 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:29.400 one of the all time great weird movies of the 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:30.240 twentieth century. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.040 Let's start scanning right now. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.560 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:54.120 And I'm Joe McCormick. And today's selection is the nineteen 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.840 eighty one Canadian sci fi horror thriller Scanners, directed by 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:02.720 David Cronenberg, a film that I first became aware of 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.640 because it was much beloved by my dad when I 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.039 was young. I remember being a little kid, like I think, 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.000 sort of hearing my dad needle my mom by being like, 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:17.000 remember Scanners, And so long before I ever saw it, 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.959 I knew the one thing that everybody knew about this 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.559 movie which is that Scanners is a movie in which 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:27.440 a guy's head explodes, which means Scanners is a certain 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.640 type of film, and that type is the film that 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.960 is apparently widely known for one thing that happens in it, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:42.160 for one particularly shocking, horrifying, or otherwise uniquely salient scene 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.640 or moment, whereas the rest of the film is much 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.639 less known. I think this might be like the prime 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.920 example of that. So, like, if you mentioned Scanners to 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.000 most people, I think maybe the majority of people will 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:56.920 be able to say, like, oh, yeah, and that the 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.640 movie where a dude's head blows up, but not many 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.920 people will know anything else about it. I was trying 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.080 to think of other examples of this, like the kind 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.400 of movie that is mostly known for like one moment 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:11.920 or scene in isolation, and people don't remember that much else. 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:17.120 Multiple Ridley Scott movies come to mind. I am generally 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:21.560 very intimately familiar with Alien because I've watched a bajillion times, 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:23.359 but I think that's sort of one of them. It's 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.079 a movie where a monster bursts out of a guy's 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.920 chest at the dinner table, and maybe most people know 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.919 that but don't know anything else. Rachel suggested another Ridley 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.720 Scott movie, Thelma and Louise. It is the movie where 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:37.160 a car goes over a cliff. 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.120 Yeah, I don't think I've seen Thelma and Louise, but 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.480 i've seen that scene, you know, Like that scene has 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.680 been presented to me. Parodies of that scene have been presented, 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.840 and therefore I feel like I know Thelma and Louise even. 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:50.359 Though I do not. 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.280 Yeah, a one that came to mind for me. A 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.360 more recent example might be Gamo de Torres, The Shape 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.960 of Water, the movie in which a woman and a 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.440 fishman make love, albeit I think tastefully an off screen 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.280 if I'm remembering correctly, or one of those two things. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.000 But that's a film where there's a lot more going 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.400 on there, and I think it's a pretty solid picture. 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.000 But that was the thing that was showing up in 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.919 late night monologues and so forth. In other ways, I 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.520 think you might look at films like Basic Instinct and 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.600 Bad Lieutenant that can come to mind for other reasons 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.960 that people would call them out for, Oh, there's this 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.760 one scene where something happens and in a backwards way 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.920 to channel another fishman movie. The promotional material for nineteen 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:39.240 eighty Screamers, which was the US Corman re release of 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:43.800 an Italian film Island of the Fishmen, tried to promote 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.360 itself as the movie in which a man turns inside out, 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.600 despite no such scene occurring in the motion picture. 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.840 That's a good idea. I can't think of another example. 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.160 It'd be like if Scammer Scammers Scanners was known as 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.680 the movie where Ahead explodes, but it didn't actually happen 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:00.320 in the movie. 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.440 Yeah, that would that would be really really lame. Whereas 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:06.680 in reality, I mean, they knew they had a great 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.480 scene there. I was reading that originally that scene was 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.320 going to happen first, but given the cinema and movie 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:16.640 going culture of the time, they knew it's local people 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.200 going to come in late. I guess they. But anyone 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.480 who was watching films at the theater in nineteen eighty 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.320 please tell me. I'm assuming there were fewer trailers, because 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.040 now you've got a solid half hour of trailers. But 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.240 the concern was at the time, well, people are going 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.520 to come in late, They're going to miss our key scene. 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:35.800 We've got to offset it a bit with some other 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:37.400 introductory material. 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.359 I mean, it is a really great scene. So anyway, 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.880 I grew up hearing about this movie in the terms 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.840 previously described. I saw it at some point after which 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.240 I thought it was a cool, creepy thriller. I had, 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:52.640 you know, modestly positive feelings about it. I also thought 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.120 there were a few elements that didn't work so well, 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:56.960 and they were some of the same elements that have 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.640 been criticized by critics, especially when the movie initially came out. 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.400 But in the intervening years, I think critics who have 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.159 looked back on Scanners have had a more robustly positive 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:12.320 appraisal of it, and I found myself having exactly the 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.960 same reaction. On my most recent rewatch, I gained a 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.360 much more unqualified appreciation for it. I think Scanners is 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.640 just just awesome, and some of the criticisms were the 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.359 things about it I used to criticize. I now actually 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.440 think our strengths. This movie is so much more than 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:30.440 an exploding head. 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:35.680 Oh absolutely, And I was also surprised at how well 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.359 it held up and how much I enjoyed it. In 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:41.839 past viewings. I think I had that similar experience where 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:43.479 I was like, well, there's a lot of great things 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:45.440 going on here, but AB and C don't really work 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.679 for me all that well. I think for the most part, 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.680 my criticisms were somewhat dulled in my recent rewatch of 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:54.280 the film, So it's going to be fun to get 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.120 into all that now. You were talking about your dad 0:05:58.160 --> 0:05:59.919 being a fan of it and talking about the exploding 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.600 head and all I have to say for my part, 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.200 before I even knew there was an exploding head scene 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.320 in this movie, my earliest memories were of the box 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:11.800 art at the VHS rentals store and the poster for it, 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:13.680 which I think would have also been on the wall 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.680 of the VHS Renold store, because this alone really freaked 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.960 me out. Chef Kiss, Yeah, this is the one. You 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:24.560 see this in a lot of the current materials for 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.039 the film. This is the one that shows Michael Ironside's 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.560 character in just full rending, like straight limbed scanner mode, 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:37.080 nearly like a full body representation, just completely scanning out. 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.520 It's just absolutely terrifying. It represents some it's supposed to 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.360 represent the way the character looks in the final showdown 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.800 of the picture, which is an in and of itself, 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:51.799 a horrifying sequence. I would say, more horrifying, maybe less shocking, 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.160 but more horrifying than the head burst scene. This art, 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:57.680 I had to look it up. This is apparently poster 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:00.880 art by Joe Anne Daley, who credited with some other 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:06.160 really awesome VHS era posterrim box art stuff like creep Show, Popcorn, Prison. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.800 Prison's one that I never saw, but I remember distinctly 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:15.560 this weird like skull prison looking VHS box art. 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.560 Oh yeah, she did something truly amazing here. So it 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.160 is representing the scene where like the veins are popping 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.440 out and all that, But there's also just there's an 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.440 aura around Michael Ironside and the way that all of 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.640 the textures of his skin and clothes and his hair 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.520 or like they're like rising up off of him, as 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:39.080 if he's literally sublimating, like his body is so hot 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:40.680 it's turning into a gas. 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.720 Yeah, and there's this it's not even like a subtext 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:46.480 to it because the poster art, some of the poster 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:48.640 art and the lobby cards that I was pulling up for it, 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.560 it has the taglines on it like ten seconds the 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:55.760 pain begins, fifteen seconds you can't breathe, twenty seconds you explode. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.040 It's saying, look at this horrible vision of a man. 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.040 This could happened to you watch this movie to find 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:02.680 out why. 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:08.440 That's what happens when you combined pop rocks and PEPSI right. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.280 Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, Yeah, this poster 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.680 really does capture I think that a lot of the 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.000 shocking imagery of that final Scanner show down, this vision 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.920 of psychic power as this thing that kind of channels 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.320 violently through you and will, if left unchecked, just completely 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.040 destroy you in the process. Yeah, it reminds me a 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.840 bit of the nineteen ninety film, which of course came 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.199 out a decade later, Toby Hooper's Spontaneous Combustion that we 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:34.280 talked about on the show. 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.920 Yeah, yeah, I see the similarity, though I have to 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:39.840 say I think The Scanners is in a league above 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.960 Spontaneous Combustion. But yes, I see what you're talking about. 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.719 Yeah, but both films do have a similarity and that 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.600 they're both films where psychic powers of different types are 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:55.240 dangerous to everyone that there. This is this wild, unchecked 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.840 energy and also has potentially disastrous effects for the end 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.600 of visual that is experiencing them. Yes, all right, Joe, 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.400 what's your elevator pitch for this film? 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.960 All right, Cameron Vail can hear people's thoughts and it 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.640 makes his life a living hell. He wanders the underground 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.680 malls of Canada as a miserable outcast, until he meets 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:21.240 a mysterious scientist who informs him that he is a 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.480 Scanner and there are others like him. But instead of 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.760 a community of brothers and sisters, Cameron discovers a secret war, 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.400 and now the war has discovered him. 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:38.000 That's pretty good. Yeah, that a secret war is key 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:39.760 to it, and that's I think one of the things 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:41.640 that works so well about this film is there all 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.120 these different layers of intrigue to it as you proceed 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:44.760 through the picture. 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:50.640 Well, I would say, actually, the secret war is something 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.560 that I really noticed on this viewing of it. It 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.040 really stood out to me as a shared theme between 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:03.240 Scanners and one of Uberg's other big movies, Videodrome, because 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:05.880 if you think about it, both movies are about a 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:11.520 naive protagonist who gets inadvertently swept up into an ongoing 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.000 secret conflict between at least two existing factions or forces, 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.880 which I'm not sure why, but that in itself is 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.880 just like a really exciting, almost intoxicating plot dynamic. It's 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.240 specifically the thing about the fact that the conflict is 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.360 ongoing and it's done by these powerful forces, but it's 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:36.280 like invisible to all regular people. And so you know, 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.440 Videodrome and the cathode ray mission are already out there. 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.760 They're plotting their campaigns against one another. But somehow the 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.360 war has remained in the shadows, and suddenly the main 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.320 character is made aware of it and sucked into it 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.720 and is being played by one side against the other. 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:53.480 And in the case of Scanners, the secret war is 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:59.040 between an amoral arms manufacturer or arms manufacturing and security firm. 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.240 That's concept. And then on the other hand, you have 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.040 this murderous front of the Scanner underground. 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.280 Yeah, and I love how the players in this game 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.080 in the secret warview will they're not nation states, they're 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:17.400 not governmental agencies. There corporations and social movements and and 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.840 and rogue organizations that again are just kind of all 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.440 in the not even all in the underworld, like some 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.360 of it is in a corporate boardroom, you know, that 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.360 kind of setting. And I guess, I guess that does 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.480 kind of match up with some overarching themes that you 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.120 see in media from the eighties. You see it in cyberpunk, 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:37.200 you see it in various other pictures where it's yeah, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.680 we're in this this this realm, where it's it's corporations 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:45.800 against corporation and and these other entities. I think Cronenberg 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.600 and also William Gibson are both have both proven themselves 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.120 with leears really good at also integrating these uh yeah, 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.880 the social movements, artists and other things into these weird 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.960 views of the future and of course of the present. Now. 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:04.640 I mentioned one of the taglines for the picture, actual 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.440 taglines for the picture earlier, but here are just a 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.680 few more. There's, of course, their thoughts can kill. That's 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.800 kind of what the pictures about. Also, there are four 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.680 billion people on Earth two hundred and thirty seven or scanners. 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:22.200 I like that. That's kind of cherry picked from the screenplay. Yeah, 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.640 that's referring to a part in the film. They're kind 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:26.480 of bending it a little bit, but it gives it 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.360 that kind of provocative feeling that that works well with 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:30.880 a tagline. Yeah. 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.040 I don't know if that's actually accurate to the script, 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:35.600 because I think the number is two hundred and thirty 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.199 six and that comes from the list of known scanners, 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:41.360 the ones that are known to consect. But there are 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.280 other ones that are not known to them. 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:45.920 Yeah, And also it's not just like this is the 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:47.880 percentage of the human population that are just going to 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.400 be scanners. We find out why there are scanners in 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.040 the picture. But the one that really stood out to 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.240 me this time is you were about to experience the 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:01.600 outer reaches of future Shock, and that of course that 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.760 tagline is obviously invoking the nineteen seventy Toffler book Future Shock, 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.199 and it's one that I hadn't run across before regarding 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.319 this picture, But it really got me thinking about this 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.160 film in a different light because Future Shock just remind everyone, 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:20.120 and it was this concept that essentially you were dealing with, 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.800 or would be dealing with, a kind of trauma brought 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.840 on by rapid advances and technology that would outstrip our 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.080 ability to understand them or change with them. So don't 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:33.440 think of it necessarily as some sort of like a 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.360 movie future shock like a technology is advancing too quickly, 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:39.280 and it made my head explode, but more of a 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.840 of a like a cultural malaise even but I wonder 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:48.040 if the scanner, the individual that is a scanner in 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:49.960 this picture is in some ways kind of a physical 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.320 embodiment of this idea of future shock. They're changed, they're 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.800 potentially dehumanized in the process of this change, and they 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.400 run the risk of being less than them so and 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.920 more of a conduit. In the film, by doing nothing, 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.480 one man is almost reduced to a kind of zombie state, 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.240 another becomes a monster, and two other characters we meet 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:14.000 are able to channe all this change into creation and community. 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.160 But it's like they're all dealing with it in different ways. 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.040 Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, I think about one reaction 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.480 to if you take the concept of future shocks seriously, 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:24.440 I think one of the most common reactions to it 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:29.720 actually is a kind of disengagement or listlessness that comes 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.960 from the fact that, like, if you can't understand the 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.000 forces that are driving the world, it just kind of 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.360 makes it feel like it's pointless to try to do 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.760 anything or change anything because you don't understand how the 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.640 machine works, so you know, why would you even try 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.760 to mess with it? And I see similar themes running 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.400 around in scanners, like the idea that your agency can 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:56.600 be removed when there are forces governing your life that 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:57.600 you don't understand. 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.560 Yeah, absolutely, all right, let's go ahead and hear some 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.960 trailer audio for this one. In this case, we're drawing 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.560 on the actual radio spot, which is a lot of 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.200 fun because everything is audio. This is the audio as 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.240 it's intended. You were not supposed to glimpse an exploding 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:15.680 head in this trailer. 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:23.320 Ten seconds the pain begins, and your flesh and your brain. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:30.240 Fifteen seconds you can't breathe, It chokes you, it destroys you. 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:39.360 Twenty seconds you explode. Experience the terrifying power of scanners. 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:44.000 Their thoughts can kill. Rated R restricted under seventeen might 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:45.280 admit about parn. 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.120 I like this radio trailer too, because it again a 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.520 very sonic experience that I think delivers on some of 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.680 the just the excellent music and sound effects in this 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:03.920 picture that help bring about this weird, creepy, psychic feeling. 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:06.560 The movie not only has good music, but I would 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:11.040 say the sound design is really important in oh, I 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.960 don't know, moments that feel less like music but more 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.040 just kind of like the pulses and throbbing and drone 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.440 sounds that occur when the scanning session is taking place. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.480 Absolutely now, before we get into the plot, just if 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.360 you're wondering, well, where can I watch scanners? Well, It's 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.440 widely available. You can strain this one, purchase it, or 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.920 rent it very many places, including as part of the 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.800 Criterion collection. This one's the one's cemented in the collection, 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:39.880 alongside the likes of Fiend Without a Face. 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:42.920 Ah, that's wonderful. I like when a film that was 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:47.080 initially regarded by reviewers as trash or as just you know, 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.840 some scummy bit of garbage it gets the Criterion stamp 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:50.480 of approval. 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.800 Yeah. Yeah, because you look back on writings about Cronenberg 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:57.960 during this time period and a lot of times that 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.320 he's treated with a sense of danger. This is a 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.160 dangerous weirdo they're letting make films and do we dare 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.160 watch it ourselves? And to a large extent, I feel 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.800 like we're past that, Like we've seen this full career 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.760 by Cronenberg, a career that's still ongoing, and we have 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.920 a more complete understanding of what his sensibilities are and 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.440 yet many of them are weird. But I guess there's 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.800 less of a feeling of this is a dangerous man 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.600 making dangerous films, and yet in Rewatching Scanners, I could 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.600 definitely feel some of that, especially in the final showdown 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:36.680 between our main Scanner characters. There was an unhinged, unsafe 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:37.359 energy to it. 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.920 I mean, I love his films by and large, but yeah, 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:46.120 it's hard to maintain that illusion of absolute danger after 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.320 you've seen his scene in Jason X for one, and 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:50.920 after you've seen his hair. 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:56.120 Yes, it's a marvelous head of hair. All right, let's 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.880 talk about him a little more in depth. Yeah. David Cronenberg, 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.600 the director and writer the picture, born nineteen forty three 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.320 as of this recording, very much still alive and still 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.720 making films, Thank goodness. Yeah, what can you say? Legendary 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.680 Canadian master of the weird, profit of the New Flesh. 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.760 His first full length film was nineteen sixty nine Stereo, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:19.920 and from there he went on to direct nineteen seventies 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.000 Crimes of the Future and a whole string of TV projects, 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.400 before returning to the weird with nineteen seventy five Shivers, 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:31.080 followed by nineteen seventy seven's Rabid and also the normy 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.399 nineteen seventy nine racing movie Fast Company. That's one I 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.120 was actually at tempted to do on the show here 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:39.760 because we've been kind of building up to actually doing 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:44.320 a David Cronenberg film on a podcast series about weird films. 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:46.600 It seems like it shouldn't have taken us two years 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.600 to get here, but we had to pick the right one. 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:51.600 And for a little bit there, I was thinking, well, 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.240 we almost can't pick a regular Cronenberg film. We should 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:56.200 just do Fast Company. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.480 Yeah, there's a lot of I mean, like, I think 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:01.720 we ten to toward movies that are a little bit 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.400 like funnier or more fun to discuss, and a lot 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.560 of Kronenberg movies are are really fascinating, but they're also 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.520 like really downers. They're like really bummers in one way 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:15.240 or another. I think Scanners is not quite that. So 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.119 it's on it's on the lighter side of even as 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:19.879 dark as it is, it's on the lighter side of 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:21.159 the Kronenberg spectrum. 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:23.280 Yeah you would. I don't think you would ever described 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:28.680 Scanners as fun, but compared to the larger filmography of Kronenberg, yeah, 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.280 it's it's it's on the fun end of the spectrum. Anyway. 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.760 After Fast Company, that's when he did a trio of 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:36.560 films that kind of, I feel like, kind of set 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:41.359 the tone for Cronenberg weirdness, The Brood, Scanners and Videodrome 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:43.760 all three of those between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.920 eighty three. He followed these up with nineteen eighty three 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:51.120 Stephen King adaptation The Dead Zone. He did one episode 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.040 of Friday the Thirteenth, the series, nineteen eighty eight s 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.000 Dead Ringers, nineteen ninety one's Naked Lunch, ninety threes, m Butterfly, 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:02.480 nineteen ninety nine's Exhuits Distance, two thousand and two Spider, 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.600 And from here he drifted more into I guess serious 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.000 crime drama, violent crime drama for a spell there with 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.200 two thousand and five's A History of Violence in Eastern Promises. 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.320 Then he did A Dangerous Method and then Cosmopolis. But 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.160 at this point, oh, there's also a what a Map 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:21.920 of the Stars I think is in there as well. 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.159 But now he's back to his roots. He's returned to 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.720 his roots with twenty twenty two's Crimes of the Future, 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.960 which I'm doing to understand has no actual connection to 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.560 the nineteen seventy film Crimes of the Future beyond the title. 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.520 But yeah, he's back working on weird films again. I 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.120 mean not I guess they're all weird films, but certainly 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:46.520 weird speculative films, and I believe his upcoming picture is 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.440 going to be about Communion with the Dead. 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.280 M okay, which was I've never seen it, but as 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.359 Existends the one that I've heard described as just a 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.560 remake of Videodrome but with video games instead of TV. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.240 Yeah, I think that's a pretty fair statement. 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:03.359 Now. 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.359 I haven't seen it, probably in twenty years, but I 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.879 remember it having that kind of like, you know, creepy 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.800 New Flesh vibe but with game cartridges and weird flesh 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:17.080 guns and so forth. 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:19.919 I just bring that up because it's the video games 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.159 of nineteen ninety nine, which I think has got to 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.879 be like the funniest era of games ever, like the 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.200 Nintendo sixty four PlayStation one kind of era, like those 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.320 early three D games that if you look at any 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.800 game from that era now, chances are it's going to 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:36.720 be hilarious. 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:40.119 Yeah, unless you had a Cronenberg sixty four, now that 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:44.840 that was a console, you took your cartridge and you 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.959 just I shouldn't explain how it all worked anyway. Scanners 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.760 is based on a couple of different psychic scripts that 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.520 he apparently had gone in the late seventies. The Sensitives 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:57.679 and Telepathy two thousand. These were apparently both films he 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.840 was going to pitch to Roger Corman and this whole thing, though, 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.680 was rushed into production to take advantage of Canadian tax 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.800 subsidies at the time, so he was apparently writing scenes 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.240 for Scanners, oftentimes the morning before they would film later 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.760