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Directed by David Cronenberg • 1981 • Canada
Starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O’Neill, Michael Ironside

With SCANNERS, David Cronenberg plunges us into one of his most terrifying and thrilling sci-fi worlds. After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabbed by agents from a mysterious rogue corporation, he discovers he is far from the only possessor of such strange powers, and that some of the other “scanners” have their minds set on world domination, while others are trying to stop them. A trademark Cronenberg combination of the visceral and the cerebral, this phenomenally gruesome and provocative film about the expanses and limits of the human mind was the Canadian director’s breakout hit in the United States.

Scanners
  • Scanners

    Directed by David Cronenberg • 1981 • Canada
    Starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O’Neill, Michael Ironside

    With SCANNERS, David Cronenberg plunges us into one of his most terrifying and thrilling sci-fi worlds. After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabb...

Extras

  • Jonathan Lethem on SCANNERS

  • The SCANNERS Way

    The following documentary, produced in 2014 by Michael Lennick, a Toronto-based documentarian and visual effects designer and supervisor, explores the “predigital” special effects in SCANNERS and features interviews with several of David Cronenberg’s collaborators.

  • Michael Ironside on SCANNERS

    In this interview, conducted in March 2014, actor Michael Ironside discusses SCANNERS and his extensive career in both Canada and Hollywood.

  • The Ephemerol Diaries

    This interview with actor Stephen Lack was produced by Subkultur Entertainment in 2012. Lack discusses working on SCANNERS, how he became involved in the Canadian film industry, and his notable career as a visual artist.

  • David Cronenberg, 1981

    In the following excerpts from the March 10, 1981, episode of his popular CBC talk show, Bob McLean talks to director David Cronenberg about the recent release of SCANNERS and some of his earlier films.

  • Stereo

    Directed by David Cronenberg • 1969 • Canada

    David Cronenberg’s first feature, 1969’s STEREO concerns medical experiments and telepathy and is a clear precursor to SCANNERS. The sixty-five-minute film, presented here, stars Ronald Mlodzik, who would go on to appear in Cronenberg’s CRIMES OF THE ...