The fourth of David Cronenberg's films in which a scientist's biological innovation turns out to be not quite what they expected gets a new 4K restoration supervised by Cronenberg. Second Sight are releasing it in both UHD and Blu-ray editions, with the limited edition containing both, plus the usual assemblage of bits and bobs to make the package even more special.
This time out the scientist is bio-pharmacist Patrick McGoohan, his invention is the thalidomide-like drug ephemerol, and the unexpected side effect from having a 'plain sailing pregnancy' is that the children who are born can make people's heads explode. Well, the first couple of them who happen to be the scientist's own children, anyway.
A huge success when it was released (it was the number one film in the film in the US the weekend it came out) the film came in for criticism at the time from Cronenberg purists (oh yes there were plenty of them around by then) who complained that some of the elements that likely contributed to its mainstream success were at the cost of the careful character development seen in his previous films.
Stephen Lack's Cameron Vale has lived as a derelict for most of his life but a quick jab of ephemerol from McGoohan and suddenly he's able to go all Canadian James Bond, able to carry himself off at a posh art gallery and infiltrate the evil corporation making ephemerol where he has no trouble at all using their computers.
That said, SCANNERS is a deserved success. While it's not the potential Oscar winner that THE BROOD now feels like, it is well-paced and extremely entertaining and the fact that these two film came out within a short space of time just demonstrate Cronenberg's increasing versatility as a director.
Second Sight's new extras are a commentary track from Caelum Vatnsdal (who performed similar honours on Second Sight's CRIMES OF THE FUTURE disc recently), and a visual essay on the film from Tim Colman. Other extras have been ported over, either from Second Sight's previous Blu-ray release of 2013 or elsewhere. These include interviews with Stephen Lack (24 minutes), Lawrence Dane (5 minutes), DP Mark Irwin (15 minutes), FX artist Stephan Dupuis (10 minutes) and executive producer Pierre David (14 minutes) all from the Second Sight release and Howard Shore (19 minutes), FX artist Chris Walas (21 minutes) and Michael Ironside (30 minutes) all from 2017. Finally, the limited edition comes with a 120 page book with new writing, six art cards and a slipcase.
David Cronenberg's SCANNERS is out from Second Sight on Monday 31st March 2025 in a limited edition dual format UHD and Blu-ray edition and standard separate Blu-ray and UHD discs.
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