Thy Davideth 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.

Leofwine_draca David Cronenberg's SCANNERS is one of my favourites of his films – it's a rip-roaring B-movie with a great premise, good acting, and genuine horror. When I sat down to watch the sequel, I had a good idea of what I was getting myself into – an unconnected B-movie in name only, made in 1991 so probably pretty cheesy. Boy, I was wrong! This is a sequel that follows the original film pretty closely but puts a fresh spin on proceedings, and it actually doesn't come off too badly in comparison to the first. Sure, the director can't hope to match Cronenberg's work, but for the most part this is a pacy, exciting little thriller with some well-staged action scenes. And it's only a little bit cheesy.David Hewlett makes for a charismatic lead and he's ably supported by an intriguing cast. This being a Canadian production, half of the actors are French, and Yvan Ponton is the best of the lot, a truly hissable and appalling villain. It was great to see Isabelle Mejias again after her titular role in video-nasty era horror flick JULIE DARLING; Mejias is an actress with an indefinable, hypnotic quality about her. I would describe her as elfin and she lights up the screen whenever I see her; it's a shame she hasn't done more work. Raoul Trujillo, playing an evil scanner, goes way over the top but there was something about his crazed, energetic performance that grabs your attention in the same way that Jim Carrey does. Of course, there are the requisite exploding heads and other bubbly, grisly special effect sequences, and these are all well-handled. This is a fine little film that puts other B-movies from the era to shame.

Darkblood1 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.

jbpott I have always love the film Scanners and have always loved David Cronenberg, but after Deadringers, I always felt he started to go downhill from a wonderful ride in the horror genre. Scanners was one of his best in his early period, when he was working from original screenplays and wasn't in an adaptation funk at all (ie., Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly and Crash). It was a promising plotline and was very entertaining. It has also become a cult classic. So when I saw this sequel when it first came out, I didn't think it would be as good as it is.I'll spare you the plotline since you've undoubtably have read the other reviews, but I will comment on the films structure. It works surprisingly well considering the original didn't leave much for a sequel like this one. If one were to truly look at the first film for a sequel, the likely route would have been to have the main characters be on the run from the secret corporate organizations (a plotline used in Firestarter) which could lead to a very boring and predictable outcome. But this film was made ten years later and the plotline ideas can have new twists and it is this factor that makes this film a success.The opening ropes you in by the way it mimics the opening to the original--homeless, drifting Scanner losses mind in public and gets corralled by the guys in shades and trenchcoats. But its different from the original opening in that Scanners 2 opens with the vagabond Scanner screaming at the city in agony as the mental voices of the population invade his extrasensory mind and drive him crazy. It would be like an itch you can't scratch. I liked this aspect of the opening and it made me realize the filmmaker was a huge fan of the first film. It proved he wanted to be true to the first film and not just make another sequel in name only. The plot device of making the Scanners junkies to mind suppressing drugs was another excellent addition. It further proves the filmmaker's desire to make a good sequel.If you loved the first film, you have to give this one a try. It is very entertaining, great character development and delivers in the gore factor department.