Review: Scanner Cop (1994)

Directed by: Pierre David
Starring: Daniel Quinn, Darlanne Fluegel, Richard Lynch
Written by: John Bryant, Pierre David
Music by: Louis Febre
Country: Canada
Available on: 4K/Blu-ray (Vinegar Syndrome)
IMDb

Scanner Cop is either the third sequel to David Cronenberg’s Scanners (1981) or the first film in the Scanner Cop spin-off franchise, but no matter the lens you view it through, it has fuck-all to do with the original movie — other than a lot of intense staring and, man, there is so much of that. Though this is technically about a cop who’s a scanner investigating what’s causing people to lose their shit and fatally attack police officers, it’s really about Daniel Quinn looking at various people for a long time while his face veins pop, his eyes and temples quiver, and a metallic whir drowns the soundtrack.

Despite its detachment from anything Cronenberg, this is a pretty nifty cop thriller from a decade filled with them. The cast is actually unseasonably strong for an obscure sequel in a franchise that was never particularly renown. Quinn and Richard Lynch (as the bad guy, of course) both do just fine with the majority of the screen time, although Lynch should have gotten a hell of a lot more. It’s great to see genre supporting actors like Mark Rolston and Brion James pop up. The story’s nothing mind-blowing (pun actually not intended, though as soon as I typed the “-ing", I high-fived the universe for the providence of it all), but the screenplay keeps things tight and moving along. The music is solid, as are the special effects — though this flick isn’t as headsplode-y as you might hope with its pedigree. Scanner Cop’s general ethos is “good not great.” Though there’s really nothing to identify as outstanding, there’s also nothing abhorrently bad.

However, this movie’s thorough “fine”-ness makes it difficult to write about. Yes, you should see it if you want to be entertained by something that won’t take up too much of your precious time. Should you exert an unreasonable effort to do so? Nah. It could have channeled more zaniness, it could have shown more body parts bursting open at the fleshy seams, Lynch could have waxed villainous for longer, I would not have hated if there were more hallucinated monsters. But that’s expecting too much out of a film that never sets up anything so lofty.

Overall rating: 5.5 out of 10