Exploring the Sequels

# 4 Scanner Cop 2: Volkin’s Revenge

It’s Scanners meets Highlander Dracula in a worthy follow up to Scanner Cop (it’s part 2) and final sequel in the long and disjointed Scanner series (it’s part 5).

For the first time in Scanners history we have a returning character from a previous entry. Our Lethal Weapon Scanner Cop, Sam Staziak is back on the streets and he’s a been around the block since the last time we watched him blow up a serial killing, neurosurgeon cult leader’s metal plated head (YES!! that happened). This one was released one year after Scanner Cop but in this world it is set in a undetermined amount of time later. It could be one year or five but Sam looks the same age except he now has long tasseled hair, a brown, possibly ill fitted leather jacket, black cowboy boots and is just a little too old for this shit, okay.

In the last year or five (again who really knows) our psychically telepathic and clairvoyantly telekinetic rookie has scanned his way to full fledge detective fighting crime without an ounce of the concern he carried in Scanner Cop for how his scanning unchecked could harm himself or others. This is solved quickly with a throw away line early on explaining how the latest version of ephemeral has now been perfected for scanners to take for relief of migraines and insanity while being able to still utilize their powers. Convenient plot contrivance? You bet. Does it matter at all? Not a chance. Scanners be scanning. Moving on.

After infiltrating a building, scanning a group of kidnappers, and saving the hostages (John McClane who?) Sam’s subplot consists of locating his birth mother (Barbara Tarbuck) with the help from fellow scanner and friend Carrie Goodant (Krystyne Haje) who owns a type of 23andMe (for scanners) non-profit. A powerful and psychotic serial killing scanner (is there another kind at this point??) named Karl Volkin (Patrick Kilpatrick) broke out of the institution holding him to find and enact revenge on Sam. In a flashback we learn Sam stopped Volkin and his brother moments before their attempt to assault a woman. Volkin tries to scan Sam but learns quickly that Sam is the more powerful scanner and loses, getting his brother killed.

I mentioned in my previous post that Scanner Cop had the feel of a serialized “villain of the week” show like Highlander the series. Well, this is where the Scanners series fully gets its Highlander There Can Be Only One on. There had been at least two Highlander movies by this point and Highlander the series was on its third season. A Queen song could have played during the credits after Volkin escapes and quickly learns he has the ability to drain other scanners powers to the point of death by scanning them until they become gooey, melted down, deflated bags of skin (think Monica Bellucci sucking up souls in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice).

His first kill of a scanner pickpocket wise ass lurking in a dark alley is an enthusiastically gory highlight in a series of practical effect takedowns that ramp up as Volkin gains power. He gains the contacts and addresses of all the scanners in LA by scanning Carrie’s computer (a surprisingly heavily populated scanner area) and hunts each one Terminator style. With each scanner he defeats, Volkin gets closer to his goal of becoming more powerful than his nemesis. Sam must figure out why Volkin is killing scanners and stop him before he becomes too powerful placing him and the people he cares about in peril.

Daniel Quinn has less to do this time as Detective Staziak and is reduced to the stoic, tough cop cliche that had become a constant by the mid 90’s. The movie removes any struggle or conflicted nuance Sam held previously. But, Mr. Quinn brings the same intensity when it counts which is when he goes hard in the paint all bulging forehead veins, watery, bloodshot eyes, and shaky, clenched jaws.

On our villain, if there has ever been an actor who looked like a scary as shit, retired early 90’s UFC fighter who will eat your lunch and slap your grandmother’s dog it’s Patrick Kilpatrick. He plays Volkin like an intensely over the top grunge, trench coat vampire. All orgasmic eye rolls, huge toothy grins, and shadowy, head shaking mania. Kilpatrick goes head to head with Quinn and gives him a real run for his money on who can show the camera their most painfully constipated scanner face. The results are in though and Daniel Quinn is still the reigning champion. It’s truly amazing and an honor to watch him fully commit.

Scanner Cop 2 lacks the abundance of tv and film character actors of Scanner Cop but to make up for that we do get Sam’s superior officer, the fantastically named Captain Jack Bitters, played by the one and only Robert Forster (R.I.P., King). Unfortunately he is in only a few scenes with pretty straight forward, uninteresting dialogue but is genuinely supportive of our pro scanner detective which is refreshing change from the “you’re a loose canon” angry cop boss trope played as nauseam in movies and tv. Although he is criminally underused in this he is still Robert “Medium Cool” Forster and he makes the best of it with his pitch perfect professionalism and no small roles attitude. It would be only four years later that he would costar with legend Pam Grier and be nominated for an Academy Award as the vulnerable, soulfully lived in romantic bail bondsman Max Cherry in Jackie Brown. Showing the world with the right parts what a captivating leading man he could be. That is wild and it feels like it could have been fifteen years later. He also costarred in Maniac Cop 3 a couple of years earlier, another character actor driven series I look to cover down the road.

After the OG head explosion Cronenberg mic drops in the first few minutes of Scanners, Scanner Cop 2 may have the most creatively and horrifically fun gore effects in the series created by artist John Carl Buechler. Some additional highlights include scanning a person in a coma to draw a sketch artist photo of the killer, a cameo of an exquisitely mulleted Kane Hodder getting his ear burned off by a telephone, and an all timer scene of a scanner being scanned/fused through a screen door only to be found by her spouse minutes later in a horrifying fashion. There is also a head scratching scene of Volkin having a flashback explaining why he wants revenge on Detective Staziak shot from the angle of him splay legged in a bubble bath ala Nancy in A Nightmare On Elm Street. An odd choice maybe but good for them in doing something different.

Quickly, my dad passed away from cancer in 2009. I started this Substack in part because I wanted to talk about lost, forgotten, unknown, underrated, and unloved movies from the era of my youth (1980’s and 90’s) and see if I can improve with each movie I write about. But I also chose this to find a new way to connect with my dad. This movie is the perfectly distilled essence of the kind of vhs he would bring home from our local video store, Cinema To Go, on a Friday after work for us to pop in and watch with some pizza and popcorn. My dad could love Casablanca, The Good The Bad And The Ugly, and also have room in his heart for Scanner Cop 2. Just pure 90’s Dad cheese!

A solid continuation to Scanner Cop, director Steve Barnett continues Pierre David’s workman like direction with a quick cash grab sure, but with some genuine heart and love for the franchise mixed in the recipe that’s worked to varying degrees over fifteen years and five movies. Even with some direct to video line reads, rushed story decisions involving Sam’s mom that don’t quite work, and an ending that falls a bit flat involving dementia (?) compared to the final showdown in Scanner Cop, we get two really good, if not great, lead (real!) actors who are serious about their craft and bring some real pathos into the two thinly written roles. These guys aren’t fucking around and it elevates the weaker points of the movie into something strangely sincere. Not bad for a sci fi horror action series that is, if not always high art, at least also sincerely strange. I kinda loved it.

A definite recommend if you’ve made it this far. Scanners 2: Volkin’s Revenge was also known as Scanners: The Showdown and this is our final showdown in this series, mom, I mean my legion of readers.

The Scanners series has been absolutely Horrorble!

Going a bit more mainstream monster next for you zombie fans out there as I will be covering The Return of the Living Dead series.

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Here are my final rankings:

1.) Scanners

2.) Scanner Cop

3.) Scanner Cop 2

4.) Scanners 2

5.) Scanners 3

The Scanner series awesome villain names ranked:

1.) Daryll Revok

2.) Karl Volkin

3.) Peter Drak

4.) Helena Monet

5.) Karl Glock