Hey everyone and welcome to round two of this Scanners sequel/spin-off review special so on to Scanners III: The Takeover (or its alternate title Scanner Force).
We start off with opening text crawl pretty much in case anyone missed the first two films explaining what Scanners are. Already I’m seeing a problem here; first off in the first film it’s implied that Scanners are constantly bombarded with hundreds of stray thoughts from other people. And without Ephemerol to stop these stray thoughts eventually the Scanners would go insane. In this film it’s implied that Scanners suffered from auditory hallucinations…..ugh no they don’t at least I don’t think they don’t. Anyway after the text crawl we cut to a Christmas party where we’re introduced to Alex Monet (played by Steve Parrish) and his sister Helena Monet (played by Liliana Komorowska) both of whom are adoptive and are Scanners. In this film it’s apparent that Scanners are known to public now; this would mean that Scanners III takes place a few years after Scanners II. Alex is persuaded by one of his friends to show off his Scanner powers. He gently pushes his friend across the room telekinetically; Alex is doing well until he gets spook by a buddy tap on the shoulder. This causes his telekinesis to ramp up accidently throwing his friend out of a window falling to his death. We cut to Alex walking to monastery in Thailand in the hope to master his powers. Despite being declare not guilty for what was deemed an accident by the court, Alex couldn’t face his family and friends for what happened. We cut to two years later and meet up with Helena and Alex’s girlfriend Joyce Stone (played by Valerie Valois). Helena starts having severe migraines which is another side effect of being a Scanner….. The first film doesn’t establish such a thing about Scanners having migraine problems; Scanners II had this minor establishment of this Scanner migraine thing. But here the whole Scanner migraines are an actual thing now. Helena and Joyce are heading back to their car until they’re confronted by a street gang; you can already guess that this is not gonna end well…..for the street gang that is. Helena telekinetically throws the street gang right into the back of garbage truck; I’ve never would have guess this film to take the phrase “taking out the garbage” extremely literally. Later Helena is drop off at her place where she meets up with her father Dr. Elton Monet (played by Colin Fox). He shows her a new delivery system called Eph 3 (Ephemerol 3); an electronically charged skin patches that are worn behind the ear and absorbed in the bloodstream. These Eph 3 patches however, are not fully tested yet for any possible side effects. Helena volunteers to test them out but Elton refuses to let her and tells her to just wait for patches to be perfected. We cut to Helena waking up from a nightmare that reminds me of Phastasmagoria II; she runs out some unspecified pills and goes to the kitchen to get more. In the kitchen she come across the briefcase with the Eph 3 patches inside; despite her father’s warning from earlier she puts on the patch. The next day Helena seems to be fine that is until a pigeon craps on her hand, she gets pissed at the pigeon and makes the pigeon explode with her powers. Yeah not a good sign for the Eph 3 patch and unfortunately since it was a bird and not a person I’m not gonna count that on the head explosion counter. There’s a scene where Helena is at restaurant where she’s talking to some rich tycoon but this doesn’t go anywhere plot-wise so I’m skipping it. Helena stops at the Baumann Clinic which is a mental institution for Scanners where she and Alex were as children before Elton adoptive them. She confronts a Dr. Baumann (played by Harry Hill) and immediately tortures him starting with causing his index finger to explode. Well it’s not exactly a head explosion but I have feeling that we’re getting there. Earlier in her nightmare there are images of Dr. Baumann performing inhuman experiments on Helena when she was a child. So now Helena finally gets her revenge by…say it with me now…making his head go KABOOM! Finally, took you long enough movie but let’s see you can beat the two head explosion record from Scanners II.
After taken out the only two orderlies in the clinic, Helena liberates the institutionalized Scanners by given them each an Eph 3 patch. We cut to the monastery where we see Alex off to speak to the monastery’s master. The master tells Alex that he shouldn’t hide from himself or hide from his past; but Alex replies that he tried everything to find how to live with his powers. Master replies to rather not to deny his powers but to do good with them. We cut to Elton hearing loud music outside his bedroom; he investigate on where it’s coming from it leads him to an indoor pool where we see Helena in a hot tub naked. Wow this is the first time in a Scanners film where there’s nudity. Elton notice she’s taking Eph 3 and confronts her to take it off but Helena has a better idea. She psychically commands him to enter the hot tub and drown himself. While Elton is drowning we cut to Alex sensing his father dying; with her father now dead Helena declares to take over his company. However, the next day her father’s attorney Michael (played by Daniel Pilon) states that Alex needs to make some decisions for the company. Helena is confident that Alex can’t be found but Michael is determine find Alex. Later Michael arrives in Thailand but completely unaware that he is being followed by one of Helena’s Eph 3 Scanners. Michael locates Alex and the two discuss about his father and the company. Alex doesn’t want to take over the company and let Helena take over instead but Michael is suspicious about her. Michael is about to explain how Helena had mysterious change but the two are interrupted by two Muay Thai fighters and a crowd of people. All of them controlled by the Eph 3 Scanner. Michael tries to fend them off but is quickly killed. Alex does some force push on the attacking crowd; the Eph 3 Scanner tries to mind crush Alex but he retaliates and mind pushed him. The Eph 3 Scanner tries to get away by taxi but Alex makes the taxi explode psychically. We cut to a board meeting at Monet Pharmaceutical Industries as Helena promotes herself as chairman and C.E.O. of the company but one of the board members suggest that someone else to take over instead. So Helena scans him to have herself promoted; OK do these guys even know that she’s a Scanner? I mean Scanners are well known now so they should know that she just scan a person to her whim. But apparently the board is made of stupid. Anyway later at a MPI lab Helena ask Joyce to have Eph 3 to be mass produce for her to have more. Joyce is resistant at first but eventually she complies with Helena’s wishes. We cut to Helena at her office hiring a guy as her assistant and by her assistant I mean her personal fuck toy. I’m not kidding we cut to the two having sex and things start to get Videodrome weird. As they’re making out Helena starts scanning the TV which is set on this talk show; she psychically controls them through the TV…while having sex. I did say this would get Videodrome weird didn’t I? To summarize Helena can now control people on TV than just in person and yes it does come into play later. I would find that stupid but then again in the first Scanners film Cameron can scan computers. Alex now back in the States stops by at their home not to find Helena so he heads to the MPI to finally meet up with her. The two have their talk then Helena ask Alex to go talk to Joyce at the Baumann Clinic; insert your own “IT’S A TRAP” joke here. Alex arrives at the clinic to look for Joyce but most of the staff is all Eph 3 Scanners; they capture and torture him but he soon escape. He rides off on his motorcycle but the Eph 3 Scanners give chase on a short bus…you heard me. The chase comes to end at a factory where Alex drives off an edge and into a lake. One of the Eph 3 Scanners jumps in to check if Alex is dead so now we get an underwater Scanner fight that ends with SURPRISE another head explosion.
So this film is tied with Scanners II with only two head explosions. We cut to Joyce returning to her home to find Alex waiting for her. She rather shock to hear that Helena try to kill Alex; they both comes to the conclusion that there’s a side effect to the Eph 3. After a hot steaming sex scene, we cut to Alex on a roof for some reason until he’s attacked by more Eph 3 Scanners…armed with guns. When using a gun instead of psychic power it deeply defeats the purpose of being a Scanner. Anyway Alex tries to escape by rappelling down the building but an Eph 3 Scanner shoots the rope and Alex falls on to a car. We cut to Joyce at Helena’s office looking through her computer to the list of the Baumann Clinic Scanners who are released. She gets busted when Helena enters the office. Cut to Alex in an emergency room; an Eph 3 Scanner disguised as a nurse enters the room to…poison him. OK I’m getting a feeling that these other Scanners are completely underused here. She’s misses the opportunity when a visiting doctor enters the room. This gives Alex the chance to fake a flatline by controlling his heart. Alex awakes in an autopsy room and leaves immediately; he arrives back at Joyce’s place and calls her at the MPI lab but no answer. Alex heads to the MPI to look for Joyce; he scans a security guard to find out where she is but he doesn’t know. Alex sees Helena on a TV broadcast somehow knowing where she is and heads there. Meanwhile people are watching a live football game; one player is about to score a touchdown but gets tackle down and then KABOOM the player’s head explodes. Yeah Helena made a guy’s head explode via TV; so that’s three head explosions in this film a new record. Helena begins her mind control broadcast announcing the people to serve her. Alex arrives at a TV broadcasting building and finds both Helena and Joyce. He takes out three of the Eph 3 Scanners leaving only one left. Alex is about to escape with Joyce but she’s under Helena’s mid control; fortunately Alex scans Joyce’s mind to break the control. The last Eph 3 Scanner chases the two down to the lobby; Alex telekinetically throws the Eph 3 Scanner to a revolving door and spins the door. He telekinetically spins the door so fast the Eph 3 Scanner’s head gets compressed to the glass until…another head explosion. So that’s four head explosions; this film really love head explosions doesn’t it? Alex goes back to the broadcasting room to confront Helena; he moves a camera away from Helena cutting off the mind control broadcast. The climax of the film is a Scanner battle between Alex and Helena or as I called it really goofy staring contest. Helena appears to be winning given that Alex’s head is about to explode but he managed to telekinetically remove the Eph 3 patch stopping Helena. She returns to normal feeling regretfully of what she did and decides to kill herself by electrocution. Alex and Joyce leave the broadcasting room ending the film with really stupid sequel bait. The film ends with Helena’s…..spirit…..soul……something goes into the electric cable and into the camera; seeing her smiling and laughing. Luckily there’s no sequel that follows up on this not even the spin-off Scanner Cop follows on something that stupid.
My Final Verdict: As much as I was fair with Scanners II I was rather bored with Scanners III. At least in some parts of the film I felt rather bored. I was bothered that the evil Scanners kept using guns instead of their powers; I guess the filmmaker wanted to save money. The rules on Scanners are way off continuity from the first film; pretty much adding some new symptoms that made no sense I think. The film as a whole feels like it’s avoiding the events from the previous films. Clearly in the film everyone is aware about Scanners but they don’t seem to take it further than that. They just name drop the term Scanners and that’s it. It’s like if the X-Men were made back in 1992 the human characters name drop the term mutants and go no further just completely forget about mutants. The chose and usage of soundtrack in this film is really odd; most if not some of the intense and action scenes have a music score that sounds it belongs to a 90s kids film. Overall this film feels meh the only thing interesting here is the high number of head explosions.
Well that’s it for the sequels now we hit the bottom of the barrel in the form of the Scanners spin-off. Next time its Scanner Cop stay tuned.
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