Scanners

Director: David Cronenberg, David Cronenberg, David Cronenberg, David Cronenberg, David Cronenberg, David Cronenberg, David Cronenberg

1981 / 103min / DCP

You know the exploding head meme begat by Scanners, but it’s time to reacquaint yourself with the movie that splattered Cronenberg’s disconcerting, disgusting vision across popular culture. When drifter Cameron Vale (artist Stephen Lack) learns that his “scanner” abilities to read and manipulate other people’s minds originate from his mother’s prenatal use of a drug called Ephemerol, he also learns of the drug’s application by one of its inventors (Patrick McGoohan), who’s working on drumming up an army of “good” scanners, and of the existence of a rival terrorist organization with aims of world domination led by Vale’s long-lost scanner brother, Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside). Come for the cranium pop, stay for the cracking cloak-and-dagger action.