Exploring the Sequels

# 1 Scanners 2: The New Order

It ain’t Cronenberg but that’s okay..

Scanners 2: The New Order (1991) directed by Christian Duguay is the follow up to David Cronenberg’s Scanners (1981).

Cronenberg’s film is one of his more mainstream and has become a cult classic since it’s release known mostly for the iconic scene of antagonist Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside) “scanning” another man’s head to explode early in the film. A fantastic practical effect created by Dick Smith (The Exorcist) and Chris Walas (The Fly), you’ve seen the gif. The main protagonist Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack making up for weak acting with large, expressive, ice blue eyes) is a vagrant unsure of what’s causing the voices he hears and his ability to cause other humans to have seizures. He is recruited and educated by a mysterious military company called ConSec to stop renegade scanners led by Revok. Scanners is not as deep allegorically in its themes of body horror as say aging and bodily betrayal in The Fly or the “new flesh” fusion of body and tech in Videodrome. It also may not reflect the director working through deep personal pain like a divorce via The Brood. Scanners is however, at its core, a story of family. In this case estranged and dysfunctional. Different yet dangerous. Family can be bound by genetics and the traits parents pass on to their children (especially when altered by experimental drugs in the womb) but our environments can also breed different perspectives and behaviors. Good versus evil. Xavier and Magneto. The film, on the surface, is good scanners fighting bad scanners to prevent world domination as the more advanced, evolved form of humanity. But under that more basic plot Cronenberg is interested in framing the psychological toll such abilities would take on a person with such power. From the physical sickness to the emotional loneliness fearing a lack of control is always present. There is an internal, tragic smallness he is capturing as we follow Vale and observe his suffering. To be a scanner, to be different and special, is such a burden that you have no home and your head could literally explode.

Scanners 2 takes a different path focusing less on the psychological with an emphasis on the sociological. It was released during the Persian Gulf War, but after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism. President George Bush at the time literally called for a “New World Order”. But instead of world domination ruled by scanners (people who are different with powers but who hold no political power) we follow a young man named David Kellum (David Hewlet) in veterinary school, who gets pulled into corrupt police commissioner John Forrester’s (Yvan Ponton) plot to turn the city into a fascist police state with the help of an unethical scientist. They are using scanners to control the city and will eliminate anyone who stands in their way. Scanners are controlled by a drug, Eph 2 (a variant of the drug in Scanners), that makes them addicted, controllable, and eventually useless. The main antagonist is no Michael Ironside but the lead hero is a stronger actor than in Scanners. Hewlet physically reminded me of a mix between Phil Collins, Mike from The Blair Witch Project, and John J York from Werewolf the tv series (1987) projecting a genuine sweetness and innocence in his character. There are themes of family again but this time it’s family finding each other and banding together to fight for the greater good. Scanners are pitted against scanners but without the surgically efficient plotting and philosophical magic Cronenberg elevates to even in his “lesser” films.

Overall Scanners 2 was an enjoyable, better than expected sequel with a fun secondary villain named Peter Drak, played by character actor Raoul Trujillo with mad, chaotic glee. Drak gets a great, very 90’s intro in a neon lit arcade that establishes immediately the levels of his power and what Kellum will eventually be up against. Even though it’s shot in that early 90’s “made for tv” way the themes of people in power controlling society by disinformation and fear mongering can’t help but ring true today. Who would have thought a direct to video sequel about people who can kill by looking at you hard could speak to our current political climate.

I would compare this in quality to the Fly 2 or Robocop 2 (both better than this). Like those films, it doesn’t reach the heights of the original but it does create a new story of outcasts and how they are manipulated through people in power while continuing the tradition of solid special effects. Many rubber faces contort and bubble, and we even get more than one exploding head if that’s what you came for!

I know I did.

Thank you so much for making it this far down the page reading Exploring the Sequels…I think one or two of you out there might pick up what I’m throwing down here. I’ve seen a lot of reviews on Anora and Wicked of late but you’re probably only going to get your 33 year old Scanners 2 coverage here people!

I don’t pretend to be a writer and this is my first post. It was fun. I plan for now discussing lesser known and under appreciated horror sequels when I can get to them. Some will be good, some bad. Others really bad. Let’s talk about them. I have a lot of series in mind to continue with after this one but I’m always up for recommendations and meeting you on here to talk about movies. And if I’m just writing to the ghosts of my hobbies than that’s cool too.

Next up will be…yep, you guessed it..Scanners 3.

Lastly, for fun I’m posting my top 20 favorite horror movies of all time and would like to know some of yours if you don’t mind to share.

1.) The Exorcist

2.) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

3.) The Thing

4.) Halloween

5.) Night of the Living Dead

6.) Jaws

7.) Evil Dead 2

8.) The Shining

9.) The Fly

10.) Alien

11.) An American Werewolf in London

12.) Don’t Look Now

13.) Psycho

14.) The Wolfman

15.) Trick R Treat

16.) The Terminator

17.) Fright Night

18.) Dawn of the Dead

19.) Black Christmas

20.) Hellraiser