Popular reviews

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  Review by russman ★★★½ 2

  Most intense staring contest ever

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  Review by k(arst)en ★★★½

  too cool of a movie for a lead performance that boring. 
  i also do wish there was more body horror, tho i’d understand if repeating the exploding head thing would’ve felt numbing after awhile. but the score is an all timer and i do think the concept itself is just plain fun. still don’t think i understand anything cronenberg has ever done or said in a movie, for now i’m just kinda nodding along and not looking away. when the guy with the glasses and mustache showed up i went “oh it’s THAT movie!!!”

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  Review by Jonathan White ★★★ 43

  Part of Lise and Jonnie’s Horror-o-thon 2014

  At last, after 33 years I’ve finally watched Scanners. Why this is a bit unusual is that Scanners is the only feature film production that I’ve had anything to do with. At the time I was working for a cable company’s broadcast division as a tech. I was among a group responsible for maintaining master control rooms ( where playback operators run tape machines and switch signals - the final deciders of what you saw on a channel ). One day my boss came to me and asked if I wanted some overtime by working on a movie shoot. He told me they wanted to use one of our MC rooms as a…

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  Review by Wes ★★★½ 1

  a captivating documentary on whats its like to have a wine hangover

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  Review by amaya ★★★

  cronenberg: *heads blowing up, eyeballs melting, blood splattering everywhere*
  me: :)

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½ 1

  Another anticipatory apocalypse from Cronenberg, the mind bending the flesh into who-knows-yet, and with its psychic attacks eventually targeting computers he actually (intentionally or not) does suggest a human singularity not unlike one a lot of folks eagerly await today. Revok's methods are unsound but his goal is inevitable.

  I also love how this is a story not of competing ideologies but of corporate espionage among private security firms, fought with radicalization and terrorism, all taking place in anonymous office parks, clean-labs, and think-tank conference rooms. Sometimes it's so dry it feels like some sort of vintage, super fucked-up episode of Frontline.

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  Review by #1 gizmo fan ★★★½ 1

  Where is my man getting all these jackets!!

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  Review by Evan T ★★★★½

  Rehabilitation through art, resulting in a movie that’s goofy, gory, and totally underrated. If you can see past lead actor Stephen Lack’s (oh the irony) painfully wooden line deliveries, there’s so much genre-fare to lap up here. The fusion of moody neo-noir and body horror works superbly at creating a constant state of tension, connecting directly to the nervous system of any viewer willing to give its playfulness the time of day. Howard Shore’s score is sublime, Dick Smith’s makeup designs are haunting, Cronenberg’s direction is as anatomically involved as ever, and we get what is quite easily the greatest head explosion ever put to screen. What more could you ask for?

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★ 8

  Hoop-Tober, Film 30 of 31:

  "My art... keeps me sane."

  Screw it, it's Hooptoberish enough, especially with the infamous head explosion scene and frighteningly bad acting, haha. I had heard that Stephen Lack gives a pretty lackluster lead performance in Scanners, but I thought that I might hold a different opinion, that I might be able to find something redeeming in his acting, something that I enjoyed. No. It's awful, truly awful... it's pretty much exactly how I'd define the word uninspired. Fortunately, you get used to it, and it doesn't detract much from how awesome and campy this movie is. David Cronenberg has been one of my favorite directors for a long time; I'm surprised that I hadn't seen…

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  Review by Lise ★★★½ 14

  This film has the distinction of containing the single most terrible performance by a lead that I have ever seen in my life. Let me rephrase that, because I'm sure there are plenty of terrible performances out there in terrible films. This is by far the best film with a terrible lead that I've seen. I think that's better. Maybe I'm digging a hole here.

  I'll give Stephen Lack credit for one thing: when he was doing the scanning business, when he was staring intently, wide-eyed, forcing his mind to do what scanners do, Lack was great. I mean he was a really good scanner-who-was-scanning. For the remainder of the film, though, oh my, it is almost funny how terrible…

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★

  Michael Ironside's menacing portrayal of Revok was traumatizing! He literally gave a mind-blowing performance no one will soon forget! Gore-tastic Gruesome effects!

  Classic David Cronenberg!

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  Review by Willow Maclay

  Had amazing sex during this movie and climaxed right at the big heist when everyone was being shot in the head and the soundtrack was piercingly shrill. It was pretty cool.