History Film / Scanners

* PlayingGertrude: Patrick [=McGoohan=]'s character Dr. Ruth was said to have founded a biochemical company in 1942. That would make him somewhat older than [=McGoohan=] who was only about 13 or 14 at that time. This is somewhat tempered, though, by [=McGoohan=] looking and sounding [[YoungerThanTheyLook older than he was]] at this point in his career (possibly attributed to his reputed alchoholism, he did not age well after his mid-late forties).

* AntiHero: In the thought-provoking sense, rather than the LovableRogue sense. Sure, Cameron is a stone cold badass who can put his enemies into cardiac arrest without lifting a finger, but due to being BlessedWithSuck, he's also just generally [[CreepyMonotone stone cold]]. He has no outside interests, no real motivation of his own, and not a whole lot of personality, being described by Kim as "barely even human." During his downtime, he simply sits in his hotel room, stares at the wall, and waits for the next plot point to happen. So yes, he's a badass, but not the sort of badass you would ever daydream about being. This makes sense, as the character was a downright VillainProtagonist in the original script. This motif of the protagonist-as-a-pawn was one that Cronenberg later returned to in ''Film/{{Videodrome}}'', where the manipulation is a good deal more explicitly sinister.

* FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator: To some extent, Cameron Vale, who has literally no personality, while Michael Ironside and Patrick [=McGoohan=] get much less screen time but are far more memorable and interesting.

* GrandTheftMe: [[spoiler: In a heroic example, Revok destroys Vale's body in their final mind-duel, but Vale usurps Revok's nervous system outright and claims his opponent's body for his own -- though Revok's eyes are now Vale's blue.]]

* MasterOfIllusion: Obrist briefly causes a security guard to collapse in tears by [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas appearing to be his mother]].

* BadassLongcoat: Cameron Vale. A few of the [=ConSec=] guards also sport some cool trenchcoats.

* BigBad: Darryl Revok is the leader of the scanner underground movement and is plotting to take over all of society, and ultimately has to be stopped by Cameron.

* CreateYourOwnVillain: [[spoiler:Dr. Paul Ruth is largely responsible for turning Revok into an evil scanner in the first place. He inadvertently gave his children psychic powers by experimenting on his own family with untested drugs, and subsequently abandoned both his children. Ruth let Revok be locked up in an insane asylum rather than help him, which caused Revok to develop a supremacist complex and a desire to see scanners rule the world. The plot starts as Ruth tries to use Cameron, the other child he rejected, as a weapon against Revok.]]

* CreepyGood: Cameron Vale is a seemingly-psychopathic drifter with terrifying psychic powers who talks in a CreepyMonotone and has little-to-no personality or outside interests beyond the main plot. The basic undercurrent of his character is that he's fighting the evil psychics because it's slightly more interesting than staring at the wall.
* CreepyMonotone: Vale. Holy shit, Vale.
* DeathByDisfigurement: Subverted. It really seems like [[spoiler:Cameron]] is done for after Revok inflicts massive and bloody trauma on his body in the climax and even ''sets him on fire'', but he manages to [[spoiler:pull off a GrandTheftMe on Revok, letting him die in his decaying body.]]
* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: TheHero (Cameron Vale) deconstructs TheChosenOne: he's the only [[WitchSpecies "scanner"]] with the power to stop Daryl Revok, he's an absolute {{Psychic|Powers}} badass ...and he is completely devoid of personality beyond his mission to stop Revok, which he has been raised to do by an (unknown to him) EvilMentor.

* DullSurprise: Cameron has no personality whatever, which makes Stephen Lack's performance easily mistaken for simple bad acting. His acting performances normally have a somewhat [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k0vKC2hUBk&feature=related wider range of emotion]] to them.

* GuineaPigFamily: [[spoiler:Dr. Ruth's great crime.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: For all that he claims to hate humans, Revok is personally responsible for the deaths of every scanner in the entire film- ''without exception'' - either murdering them outright or else sending them to murder other scanners and getting them killed by Vale. This ultimately includes [[spoiler: himself]]. Incidentally, that guy at the beginning of the movie with the 'splodey head? Yep, that was also a scanner. One could be forgiven for thinking Revok was actually a human supremacist out to murder all scanners, because that's pretty much all that he accomplishes.

* MadArtist: Inverted by Benjamin Pierce, whose art keeps him sane. Well, sane-ish. Although his art is pretty friggin' weird.

* TheMole: [[spoiler: Braedon Keller]] is working with Revok from within [=ConSec=].

* TheNotLoveInterest: There's never a hint of romance between hero Cameron Vale and his ally Kim Obrist, because they're too busy fighting for their lives to fall in love. Also, Cameron is [[CreepyMonotone terrifying]] and emotionally stunted because of his psychic affliction, while Kim seems to be coping a lot better with her own powers.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Mr. Trevelyan, chairman of the [=ConSec=] board, seems to be a fairly responsible guy, giving Dr. Ruth a reasonable amount of leeway to deal with the Revok menace.
* ReclusiveArtist: [[invoked]] Benjamin Pierce is an artist who lives alone in a secluded barn to make his artwork. As a psychic pariah he outright refuses to see his public.
* RedRightHand: Revok's scar. Notably, it's gone after [[spoiler: [[GrandTheftMe Cameron switches bodies with him.]]]]

* ScarsAreForever: Revok has a scar on his forehead from a past attempt to let "the voices" out of his head. [[spoiler: Subverted at the end, when the scar's disappearance offers visible proof that Cameron has ousted Revok from his own brain and taken up occupancy.]]

* SmugSuper: Darryl Revok is genuinely evil, and thinks that his {{psychic powers}} mean he should TakeOverTheWorld. However, he does have a significant FreudianExcuse and [[spoiler:has largely become what he is because of his abusive father--Dr. Paul Ruth.]]

* SuperSupremacist: The bad guy, Darryl Revok, is a terrorist cult leader and the result of a BizarreBabyBoom that produced telepathic children known as "scanners." His own plot is to reproduce this previous accident by design, then train the next generation to be his foot soldiers on the path to creating a worldwide scanner supremacy.

* TreacherousAdvisor: [[spoiler:Dr. Paul Ruth presents himself as some sort of benevolent mentor figure who wants to teach Cameron how to harness his psychic abilities for the betterment of his kind, when in fact Ruth is actually a MadScientist and AbusiveParent who is simply using Cameron to eliminate an outside threat to his employers.]]

* VillainousValor: Revok plots a daring infiltration of and escape from the [=ConSec=] headquarters to [[YourHeadASplode assassinate]] their last scanner. As the head of a major scanner underground he could have sent in underlings, but he decided ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself. Also, toward the end of the movie, it's TheHero who pulls the NotSoDifferent card instead of the villain.

* WickedCultured: A moderate example. Revok has a nice, tasteful office with some interesting modern art, where he is seen drinking Scotch toward the end.
* WiseOldFolkFacade: Dr. Paul Ruth uses the "benevolent old grandfather" look to his advantage. Cameron trusts him implicitly and tries to infiltrate Revok's organization on his orders, but Ruth's actual motive is to [[spoiler:weaponize his younger son against his older one, both of whom are psychic in the first place because of him.]]

* VillainsBlendInBetter: Vale lives as a derelict on the fringes of society because he cannot control his powers and conceal the fact he's a scanner. He can seemingly conceal himself from other people's perception to some degree, or at least use mind control to make them ignore him, allowing him to do things like swipe their french fries, but generally leads a miserable existence. Compare this to Revok, who has ''supreme'' control over his powers and (except for a rough adolescence that saw him institutionalized) not only passes as an ordinary human without any difficulty (enough to fool ''even other scanners'') but is also a wealthy businessman in charge of a huge pharmaceutical company.

* BlessedWithSuck: It's no fun being a Scanner, mostly because of all that PowerIncontinence. Also, hearing the thoughts of everyone around you gets noisy and distracting.

* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: TheHero (Cameron Vale) deconstructs TheChosenOne: he's the only [[WitchSpecies "Scanner"]] with the power to stop Daryl Revok, he's an absolute {{Psychic|Powers}} badass ...and he is completely devoid of personality beyond his mission to stop Revok, which he has been raised to do by an (unknown to him) EvilMentor.

* PowerNullifier: Dr. Ruth invented a serum that blocks the constant mind-reading of a Scanner. This immediately makes Cameron side with him.

* VillainsBlendInBetter: Vale lives as a derelict on the fringes of society because he cannot control his powers and conceal the fact he's a Scanner. He can seemingly conceal himself from other people's perception to some degree, or at least use mind control to make them ignore him, allowing him to do things like swipe their french fries, but generally leads a miserable existence. Compare this to Revok, who has ''supreme'' control over his powers and (except for a rough adolescence that saw him institutionalized) not only passes as an ordinary human without any difficulty (enough to fool ''even other Scanners'') but is also a wealthy businessman in charge of a huge pharmaceutical company.
* VillainousBreakdown: Revok finally loses his cool at the end when Cameron negatively compares him to [[spoiler:their father]] and refuses his offer of WeCanRuleTogether, deciding to "do things the Scanner way" (read: lots of BodyHorror) instead of trying to convince him.

The drifter, Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), is delivered into the custody of Dr. Paul Ruth ([[Series/ThePrisoner1967 Patrick McGoohan]]), who informs him that he is a scanner. A scanner is a person born with a derangement of their brain, giving them {{telepathy}}. They can 'scan' you. Unfortunately, this telepathy is very much of the BlessedWithSuck variety: most scanners can hear your thoughts, [[PowerIncontinence and can't block them out]]. They get {{Psychic Nosebleed}}s. They can alter your bodily functions. A particularly powerful one, like BigBad Darryl Revok (Creator/MichaelIronside) can [[YourHeadASplode blow up your head]].

* AdaptationExpansion: The film is inspired by a few paragraphs of the book ''Literature/NakedLunch'' (which Cronenberg went on to [[Film/NakedLunch adapt into its own film]]), detailing a group of telepaths called 'senders', one of the many factions of [[WretchedHive Interzone]].

* GanglandDriveBy: As Cameron and a group of friendly 'Scanners' attempt to flee from Revok's hitmen in a van, they are attacked by another van filled with more gun-toting hitmen. The good guys' driver is killed in the process, causing them to crash into a record store.

* SuperSupremacist: The bad guy, Darryl Revok, is a terrorist cult leader and the result of a BizarreBabyBoom that produced telepathic children known as 'scanners'. His own plot is to reproduce this previous accident by design, then train the next generation to be his foot soldiers on the path to creating a worldwide scanner supremacy.

* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: Both Revok and Ruth seem to believe this. Dr. Ruth wants to create some sort of peaceful co-existence of humans and scanners where the latter's unique gifts are explored for the good of mankind. Revok wants to create nothing but a scanner supremacy ruled by his 'superior' kind.

* MysticalWhiteHair: Kim Obrist is a scanner with prematurely grey hair.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Darryl Revok. Probably deliberate. After all, he likely chose the name himself. To a lesser extent, naming the mysterious antihero 'Vale'

* PlayingGertrude: Patrick [=McGoohan=]'s character, Dr. Ruth was said to have founded a biochemical company in 1942. That would make him somewhat older than [=McGoohan=] who was only about 13 or 14 at that time. This is somewhat tempered, though, by [=McGoohan=] looking and sounding [[YoungerThanTheyLook older than he was]] at this point in his career (possibly attributed to his reputed alchoholism, he did not age well after his mid-late forties).

* {{Hypocrite}}: For all that he claims to hate humans, Revok is personally responsible for the deaths of every scanner in the entire film- ''without exception'' - either murdering them outright or else sending them to murder other scanners and getting them killed by Vale. This ultimately includes [[spoiler: himself]]. Incidentally, that guy at the beginning of the movie with the a splodey head? Yep, that was also a scanner. One could be forgiven for thinking Revok was actually a human supremacist out to murder all scanners, because that's pretty much all that he accomplishes.

* HiveMind: Scanners in the first film sometimes share their minds to completely experience the others' minds.

* ExplosiveInstrumentation: Justified, kind of. If Revok can blow up people's heads, Vale can blow up computers.

* BizarreBabyBoom: The plot is about a wave o' babies ([[WaveOfBabies not literally]]) with BodyHorror-tastic psychic powers. Revok, one of the children of the original boom, is plotting to start a second one, and then create an army of evil scanners and TakeOverTheWorld. And he probably ''could'' do it. [[LeftHanging Maybe he does.]] [[WordOfGod Cronenberg says]] that [[CanonDiscontinuity the sequels aren't considered canon]].

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The scanner terrorists' leader is one of the most powerful scanners around. [[spoiler:This is because both him and the hero were the first products of Ephemerol.]]

* PresentDay: Unusually for a film about super-psychics, this doesn't take place in the future (although the original script treatment ''Telepathy 2000'' did, [[{{Trope 2000}} as you might have guessed from the title]]). Of course, this film's PresentDay is the early [[TheEighties '80s]].

* {{Trope 2000}}: The film's original working title was ''Telepathy 2000'' and was at that point set in the (then) near future.

* WritersCannotDoMath: [[spoiler:Darryl Revok]] reveals himself to be [[spoiler:Cameron Vale]]'s older brother, then tells him that one of them was born in 1943, the other in 1948. Earlier in the film ''both'' characters are stated to be thirty-five years old by Dr. Ruth. Either their birth dates are incorrect or one of their ages is.

'''''Scanners''''' is Creator/DavidCronenberg's 1981 sci-fi thriller outing, full of the standard Cronenberg trademarks: brilliant special effects, a great Music/HowardShore score, constant unease, the battle between mind and body, and of course, generous helpings of BodyHorror. By his own account (see ''Cronenberg on Cronenberg''), the movie was a nightmare to work on however: due to the oddities of the Canadian film industry at the time he only had a few weeks of pre-production before he had to start shooting without a finished script. His daily schedule consisted of waking up early in the morning to [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants write a few pages]], and then film that for the rest of the day, ''all of it completely out of order''. It's an impressive demonstration of Cronenberg's writing skills that the resulting story holds together as well as it does.

The movie was followed by a number of DirectToVideo continuations: two sequels and two spin-offs. None of these involved Cronenberg or anyone else involved in the production of the first film, or follow on from its story (other than a passing reference in the second).

* MasterOfYourDomain: Dieter Tautz, a yoga master, is said to be capable of controlling his heart rate and several other usually uncontrollable body functions.

* DuelToTheDeath: A BodyHorror version of this happens at the end of the film and a pretty awesome one, too. "Awesome" in both the slang and literal senses of the word. This would not be the last time [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings a supernatural duel was fought with mind powers]] while the music of Music/HowardShore played.

* GrandTheftMe: [[spoiler: In a heroic example, Revok destroys Vale's body in their final mind-duel, but Vale usurps Revok's nervous system outright and claims his opponent's body for his own.]]

* BrainBleach: Revok tried to drill a hole in his skull to let the voices out. [[ReferencedBy This is referenced]] in ''[[Film/X2XMenUnited X-Men 2]]'' when Col. Stryker explains how his wife was telepathically DrivenToSuicide.

[[http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i212/Kerrah_photos/Exploding-head.gif Here's a gif.]] Warning: [[CaptainObvious it's messy]]. [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/b/be/Daeh-gnidolpxE.gif And here's a gif of it in reverse!]]

* CreativeClosingCredits: The ending credits are displayed as part of a computer program, with green text scrolling upwards. This was rather novel in 1981, and computer programs played a vital part into the film's psychic world domination conspiracy plot.

* WickedCultured: A moderate example. Revok has a nice, tasteful apartment with some interesting modern art, where he is seen drinking Scotch toward the end.

* LeftHanging: [[spoiler: Vale and Revok merge into a single being (though not in a BodyHorror sense), but there's still some ambiguity about which consciousness is more in control. GrandTheftMe of Revok by Vale would be the nicer possibility, although the novelization implies that Vale is indeed in control.]]

* MagicAntidote: Ephemerol, which temporarily shuts down a scanner's powers but has no effect whatsoever on normal humans. Except that [[spoiler: when used on pregnant women, it mutates their unborn children into scanners.]]

* TheNotLoveInterest: There's never a hint of romance between hero Cameron Vale and his ally Kim Obrist, because they're too busy fighting for their lives to fall in love. Also, Cameron is [[CreepyMonotone terrifying]] and emotionally stunted because of his psychic affliction.

* PlayingGertrude: Patrick [=McGoohan=]'s character, Dr. Ruth was said to have founded a biochemical company in 1942. That would make him somewhat older than [=McGoohan=] who was only about 13 or 14 at the time. This is somewhat tempered, though, by [=McGoohan=] looking and sounding [[YoungerThanTheyLook older than he was]] at this point in his career (possibly attributed to his reputed alchoholism, he did not age well after his mid-late forties).