Scanners [4K UHD] (Limited Edition)

Scannerific!
I can’t get Scanners out of my head. It is absolutely chilling and it’s all about atmosphere. It is a film that is legitimately scary. It is a film that has truly given me the shakes. As my more morbid side digs through the conspiracy files and distorted histories of PSYOPS and MKULTRA, I do indeed find that David Cronenberg’s 1981 spectacle has struck a chord somewhere in me. Cronenberg’s vision is a sterile one. It is hard not to think of Cronenberg as a surgeon. His films nurture extremely cold and scientific manifestations. His films are mostly horrifying and uninviting. Yet his films are puzzling on account of their strange charisma. Behind the camera, Cronenberg adopts the aseptic mentality sought after by no one. His vision is oblique. Each film is like an autopsy video. Cronenberg’s films seek to identify an illness, assimilate the symptoms, perpetuate the anomaly, and ultimately deconstruct its physical anatomy. Simply put, Cronenberg has the horror genre down to a science.Atmospherically speaking, Scanners is possibly Cronenberg’s most disturbing work. I found it to be nightmare inducing. It was clinical and detached, bizarrely neutral, shut off and mesmeric. This is a film that will haunt you without permission. It is psychologically stirring. It is a film with an illness, it is sickly. It is contagious and cerebral.In Scanners, Freudian symbolism abounds, yet the true subtext is found in archetypical dimensions. Cronenberg’s films have all been overtly Freudian in thought and Scanners is unique in inhabiting an unusually Jungian dichotomy. Jung believed that archetypes were psychic elements of the collective unconscious, motifs that can eventually manifest themselves in actual physical behavior. Scanners employs Jung’s theory by way of instinct through symbolism. Great transitions and revelations are being made throughout Cronenberg’s film and the characters involved assume symbolic archetypical characteristics to represent them. The most fascinating use of the archetype is what I believe to be at the true heart of Scanners. It is the archetype disguised as parable. It is the amalgamation. It is the tale of the two brothers.In Scanners, we are presented with two undisputed absolutes. We are given a definite villain and a definite hero. According to Cronenberg’s use of Jungian thought, we are actually given an undisputed transfiguration. This is a spiritual and mental change that is happening throughout the film, not just during the final showdown sequence. I actually believe that you can watch the film’s two brothers as if they were always combined, that their narratives are interchangeable or that they are at least operating in union with each other. Scanners is a film about becoming one with your psyche. Utilizing Jungian duality of man, wielding it as an archetype of transfiguration. A psychological complex enters the realm of the parable. The two brothers share one soul, the physical apparatus is but a container, or a hollow box. What Freudian thought encourages us to think of in this instance is that of a womb. The hollow box of the body, the archetype of opposing dualities or possibly even the restraint of both psyches, is in symbolic actuality a womb. These men are in the process of being born. The drug Ephemeral which created them and gave them their powers can also be used to repress them. A drug that is administered intravenously, the needle is a phallic symbol that operates in direct opposition to the hollow box of the body. It is an oppressive symbol. Dr. Ruth and his phallic instrument represent their God. Dr. Ruth as the supreme creator. He tampers with the boys psyches and restricts the very power his deliberate injections have fostered. The phallic symbol of Ephemeral and the feminine symbol of the body coalesce into scanners. Into archetypes. These scanners are warring with their feminine and masculine psyches. The two brothers are aware of this rift and amplify the archetype. It is a mental birth, a marriage between two warring factions: that of the body and that of the mind. The mother and the father. The brother and the brother, as one and at peace. Freud would interpret their transfiguration as a distorted form of wish fulfillment. Jung would simply see it as fulfillment. A subconscious takeover of the telepathic enigma. Scanners works as a Freudian interpretation of an intrinsically Jungian concept.Scanners in manifest is also a daring and provocative showcase of special effects. A group led by the legendary make-up artist Dick Smith does not disappoint. Scanners is home to at least two are the most remarkable and notorious horror effects sequences of all time. Scanners is both a technical and artistic triumph. It is even commercially viable thanks to narrative tricks of the trade. As a science fiction film, it follows the code of subtext and contemporary allegory as well as sensationalist exhibition. Cronenberg had learned well from both the literature and the monster films he had indoctrinated himself with at an early age and uses the narrative tools of the trade as only a master could. The “body horror” film has been fully realized.It would also be impossible to write about Scanners without writing about Michael Ironside. His performance as Darryl Revok is one of the most significant of the whole science fiction genre. An understated and too-often overlooked character actor, Ironside’s legend is eternal thanks to his work in Scanners. A riveting and entertaining tour de force. I wholly believe Ironside’s Revok to be the stuff of genre picture magic.

The science fiction sub-genre of telepathy or mental horror is a category that deserves great distinction. I wish that more classics existed within its parameters. The mental horror sub-genre can assume many different tones and pursue unlimited psychological symbolism. More filmmakers should take advantage of this rough terrain. Cronenberg’s film is smooth as silk and justifies the sub-genre in every possible way. Scanners elevates it and Scanners takes to the heavens.This is one of the scariest films you will ever encounter on account of how psychologically jarring it can be. It is one of my favorite films ever made and one of the most deceivingly profound horror films ever imagined. A perfect early masterpiece from a man who would one day become the king of the genre. Scanners is proof of genre transfiguration. It is extraordinary.

Uno dei film piu’ belli del maestro Cronenberg. Nonostante l’età questo film continua ad essere inquietante e geniale. Ha avuto diversi seguiti, ma nessuno è riuscito ad avvicinarsi a questo cult. Vivamente consigliato!

Un peu long, mais grand classique. Je recommande !