Scanners

Their thoughts can kill
Their thoughts can kill
SCANNERS (18)
D: David Cronenberg
Filmplan International (Claude Heroux)
Canada 1981
103 mins

Horror

W: David Cronenberg
DP: Mark Irwin
Ed: Ronald Sanders
Mus: Howard Shore

Jennifer O'Neill (Kim Obrist), Stephen Lack (Cameron Vale), Patrick McGoohan (Dr. Paul Ruth), Lawrence Dane (Braedon Keller), Michael Ironside (Darryl Revok)

Scanners are a small group of people who have evolved to develop telepathic abilities, able to lock into other people's nervous systems. One of which is tasked with finding another, who uses his sinister power to literally explode other's heads.
A dark science fiction-horror from David Cronenberg, tinted with his usual inclination towards disease and infection.
It's most violent moments are perhaps the most memorable, and though some of the special effects now seem rather dated they were deemed gruesomely glorious at the time and the film still has a huge cult following, spawning a number of sequels in the 1990's and beyond which don't quite match up to this first film.
7/10

Michael Ironside in Scanners
Michael Ironside in Scanners