Scanners II: The New Order (1991)

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Scanners 2 is about some guy who is hired to work for a police commissioner to only find out the commissioner is a corrupt butt rammer and wants to control the city. It may not have the complexity or the originality the original Scanners movie did but my God was this fun as hell. It is very action oriented with lots of great and well executed bloody violence featuring head popping and people being flung around. The story was coherent enough, the pacing was good and the acting was neat. Not as good as the original (nuuuh) but a worthy sequel regardless.

I know, from looking at other people's reviews, that there are some who feel that this is an 'okay' sequel to David Cronenberg's classic eighties horror flick 'Scanners.' And, maybe it was... once upon a time. However, there are those films that stand the test of time and then there are those who do not age well. I feel this is the latter.It's about more of those psychics (or 'scanners' as they call them here). A corrupt police chief wants to harness their unnatural power to end crime (and generally make himself equally powerful). But, after years of experimenting on boring scanners who no one cares about, he finds lovely, nice scanner 'David' to exploit. But, luckily for all that is good, David is too nice to be used and sets about ending this corrupt cop's regime before it really starts.Whereas you can watch Star Wars and not be bothered by the 'seventies haircuts' Han and Luke are sporting, here, everything just seems waaaay too eighties (which is doubly ironic as it's made in 1990).But it's not just the look of the film I disliked - it's also the story. Everything just happens to fit together waaay too well to be believable. It's one coincidence and obvious plot-motivating device after the next. The (seemingly-mandatory) love story is quite unnecessary and forced, plus the characters either under-act or overact (and I'm thinking about the 'bad scanner' when I mention overacting - he's practically a pantomime villain he's that nasty!). Yes, there's the odd bit of decent gore, but that's a small part of an 1 hour 40 minute film.Maybe this was an okay film in the eighties, or if you've never seen the original, but, if you're looking for dark and nasty horror, stick to the first Scanners - it's head and shoulders over this one.

'Scanners 2: The New Order' & 'Scanners 3: The Takeover' are more stand-alone interpretations of the themes and scenarios introduced by Cronenberg's 1981 classic than actual sequels. By all rights, it's no surprise that few have seen these; they are oozing with an early-1990's, straight-to-video feel but, as a couple, there is some genuine weight here and both films definitely have their merits.First of all, what is a 'Scanner'? Well, we learn in the original film that in the 1950's a medication called ephemerol was tested on a large number of women to ease the discomfort of pregnancy. Much to the surprise of all involved, the drug caused a mutation in the infants; they were born with powers including (but not limited to) telekinesis, extrasensory perception, and the ability to read minds. Each film builds on these powers, reaching a fever-pitch of suspended disbelief by the third.In 'Scanners 2: The New Order' we are introduced to David Kellum, a mild-mannered veterinary student who's scanning abilities are just surfacing – apparently the result of his moving away from the quiet countryside and to a volatile (and fantastically Canadian) city. He is approached by a research lab that is trying to find fresh Scanners who are not psychopaths; one of the side effects of the mutation is that it often drives those affected completely insane. David discovers that the corporation has a dubious ulterior motive and he uses his newly tuned scanning abilities to fight back.

Scanners II was released in the late 80's or early 90's, it was one of the last true low budget horror films before my town turned into big budget studio depot for films. Scanners II is both visually stunning with some great opening shots of Montreal and has a great comic book style plot. Yeah sure the connection to the first Scanners was kinda cheesy in execution, but this film is alot faster in pace and has more action than the very slow paced Scanners. The FX by Mike Smithson are great and very realistic before our dependence to all that is CGI. But overall the performances are good but nothing to write home about. Overall Scanners II has good cinematography and a clever little story of world domination to entertain fans as well as the casual viewer. I suggest to anyone to check it out and be totally entertained for 100 minutes.