Well here we are folks last stop; let’s get this over with. We start off at a police station where a drifter is taken in for questioning; a doctor is called in to check on the drifter. The only two cops look through the drifter’s personal effects and find a rather familiar bottle of pills. Oh gee I wonder if those pills are actually Ephemerol and the drifter is actually a Scanner (sarcastic)? As the doctor question the drifter one of the cops starts to have a nose bleed then suddenly pulls a scalpel from the doctor’s bag and stabs the doctor. The second cop looks through the drifter’s stuff and finds a newspaper clipping of Samuel Staziak when his nose starts to bleed. He sees his partner stabbed in the gut and dies; the cop attempts to shoot the drifter but the drifter psychically disarms him. The drifter shoots the cop leaves the station and escapes. We cut to a Trans-Neural Resource Center where we’re introduced to a Carrie Goodart (played Khrystyne Haje) who runs the center for Scanners to find help. OK in the last film there was only ONE Scanner but here there’s a population of Scanners and that they have a center for Scanners. Consistency what’s that? Anyway the now detective Samuel Staziak (played by Daniel Quinn) arrives at the center asking Carrie on any leads about his biological mother. Sadly no information about her whereabouts; Samuel gets an emergency call and heads out. Cut to a petrol chemical plant where a kidnapping attempt goes wrong and now the perpetrators want a helicopter to escape or they will kill the hostages. Samuel arrives at the plant and proceeds to enter the facility. He spots one perpetrator and immediately controls him psychically. Samuel continues into the building as he psychically gathers information from the perpetrator until he’s spotted by another perpetrator. Samuel takes out both the perpetrators, takes one of their headset communicators, and proceeds to incapacitate the rest of the perpetrators psychically via headset. Just go with it. All except for the leader are temporary incapacitated; Samuel arrives to the control room and psychically projects himself as one of the perpetrators in order to stop the leader from activating the bomb. One of the perpetrators arrives to the control room breaking the psychic mirage exposing Samuel. He shoots down both of them however; the leader activates the bomb before dying. Samuel manages to stop the bomb from going off psychically; just go with it. Later the Scanner drifter arrives at the Trans-Neural Resource Center looking for information on Samuel. Carrie spots him on a computer and quietly sneaks into the next room to call the cops. However, the drifter notices the lights on the office phone and goes after Carrie. Revealing to be a Scanner, Carrie tries to stop him but taking Ephemerol has made her not as strong. The drifter psychically overpowers her and has her to provide him Samuel’s whereabouts. The drifter then begins to psychically drain her but is interrupted by the police sirens and leaves the center. A little bit later the drifter arrives at Samuel’s house and breaks in. Back at the crime scene Samuel calls his answering and hears a message from Carrie about a lead on his mother as the drifter listens in. Samuel returns home about to enter until he sensed something behind the front door and jumps out of the way before the drifter armed with a double barrel shotgun open fires. Samuel sneaks into the back of the house when the drifter scans him. Samuel scans back and breaks into a mental fight until Samuel manages to overpower the drifter who escapes afterwards.
Cut to a different part of town where we see a Scanner using his powers to pickpocket people unnoticed. The pickpocket Scanner is confronted by the drifter whom has him psychically pinned to a wall and starts to psychically drain him. Almost like the climax from the first film with Cameron and Revok just not as graphic and impressive. So now he’s on a mission of draining Scanners of their lifeforce to become strong enough to kill Samuel. Samuel is call in to investigate a dead body in an alley (the dead pickpocket Scanner). Samuel finds a packet of Ephemerol on the dead Scanner and goes to call Carrie at the center. However, he gets the news that Carrie was attacked and was taken to the hospital now in a shock induce state of unconscious. After arriving at the hospital, Samuel goes off to see Carrie trying to scan her to find out what happened. Through some Scanner auto-sketching; seriously they’re just making shit up as they go along in this film. Anyway Carrie starts sketching a face of the drifter until Samuel is interrupted by an orderly causing some kind of mental shock on Carrie. Samuel scans her again this time to revive her from her shock and she awakens. Well if he could just snap her out of her unconsciousness what was the point with the Scanner mind-meld earlier? Anyway Samuel looks at the sketch and recognizes the drifter as Karl Volkin (played by Patrick Kilpatrick); a Scanner who Samuel put away to jail years ago. At the police station Samuel gets info that Volkin escape from a psychiatric hospital the other night. At the psychiatric hospital Samuel learns that Volkin was off his Ephemerol for four days and somehow haven’t gone crazy. Volkin manages to escape by psychically killing four guards and killed one Scanner inmate the same way with the pickpocket Scanner. Back at the hospital Samuel meets up with Carrie who’s fully recovered and discharged. The two continue their at the Trans-Neural Resource Center trying figure out why Volkin is killing other Scanners. Carrie says something about these Scanner deaths is familiar to her; we’ll come back to that later. Cut to Volkin’s place where we get a flashback of him and his brother raping a woman. Samuel arrives at the scene to stop them; Volkin tries to scan him but Samuel counter scans. Volkin calls for his brother who has the woman at knife point threaten to kill her if Samuel doesn’t back off. Samuel scans Volkin who’s armed with a gun psychically controlling him to shoot his own brother dead. Volkin now pissed seeks revenge against Samuel. Now there’s a few flags on the play here one is the obvious Scanner using a gun instead of making a person head explode. Two if Volken had a brother would it be obvious for the brother to be a Scanner as well? I mean we know how a person becomes a Scanner; meaning that the brother should have been a Scanner just like Volkin. Back to present day Volkin senses a Scanner nearby and goes on the prowl. Cut to a woman at a laundry mat when Volken shows up; apparently the woman turns out to be a Scanner. After Volkin psychically drains the woman, he’s confronted by a few cops but quickly dispatches them. A little bit later Samuel shows up at the crime scene and senses Volkin at a warehouse. He questions the workers if they’ve seen Volkin but Volkin takes control of a fork-lift operator and attempts to kill him. Samuel is caught by the fork-lift and is being crush; he tries to break Volkin’s control over the operator but Volkin continues his control. The two continue their counter scans but the operator’s head starts to hemorrhaging. Volkin persuades Samuel to stop his scan or the fork-lift operator dies. Samuel complies and scans the fork-lift to break free but Volkin escapes.
Samuel returns to the police station as he gets a call from Carrie on some information about the case and ask him to meet her at a restaurant. As Carrie leaves the center, Volkin breaks in the center and scans the computer to print out a list of other Scanners. More so he finds a file of leads on Samuel’s mother. Cut to a restaurant where Carrie tells Samuel about two Scanners back in the early 80s have got into a quarrel with one ending up being drained and other off to drain another Scanner. The winning Scanner claiming that he needed to absorb their essence to make his power stronger. OK I’m not sure if this film is intentionally making a connection with the first film. Or specifically the climax of the first film; but if it is the filmmaker fucked up. While them continuing to discuss this deadly revelation; Volkin goes around town absorbing other Scanners of their lifeforce. And nope there’s not a chance in hell I’m making a Lifeforce reference; this film deeply has not earn it. Samuel is called in at these crime scenes while Volkin arrives at a St. Jude Retirement Home looking for Samuel’s mother Rachel. Volkin calls out Samuel from the retirement home threaten to kill his mother before hanging up. After psychically traces the call back to the retirement home, Samuel hurries on over accompany by Carrie. Back at the retirement home Volkin stalks Samuel’s mother; apparently she’s not a Scanner. I would bitch about that but I’m just about spent right now. Anyway Volkin finally corners Samuel’s mother at a balcony window; he scans her but is interrupted by the sound of the police sirens. Somehow knowing what Volkin’s intentions are, Samuel’s mother decides to jumps off the balcony not allowing her to be used against her son. Samuel and Carrie arrived finding his mother in front of the retirement home. It becomes a rather anticlimactic scene when Samuel and his mother finally met only her to say his name and die. Forgive me that I refuse to shed a cry for that scene. Because frankly if David Kellum from Scanners II can keep his foster father alive psychically why could Samuel do the same for his mother? Samuel enters the retirement home and chases after Volkin; they ended up at a basement area as Volkin seals themselves in. The two meet for their finally confrontation; Samuel scans Volkin but given he’d been absorbing Scanners Samuel’s psychic attacks have no effect on Volkin. Volkin seems to have the advantage as he psychically thrashing Samuel. Samuel attempts to turn the tables as he uses two security guards Volkin killed; creating the psychically illusion of the two guards being Samuel. This plan seems to weaken Volkin as he scans these guards to death. Volkin finds the real Samuel and the two squared off once again this time the fight seems to be dead even until Samuel manages to psychic push Volkin. Samuel puts an end to this fight as he scans Volkin to the point of Volkin’s head starts to hemorrhage and then KABOOM! Wow about a few minutes left in this film and we finally get a head explosion…better late than never I guess. And with that the film just ends like that.
My Final Verdict: This film…I don’t know something about this film feels so weak and bland. The body horror effects are way too cheesy for the film’s own good. I can’t even begin to describe the film’s intent really I’m just done…I got nothing. If I did had something to say about this film is that it’s just stale, simply stale like there’s just no weight to it at all. And truth be told I wish David Cronenberg directed these, well except for Scanners II that film was alright but the rest needed Cronenberg so bad.
OK I’m finally finished with this franchise done and fucking done. Now I’m off to take a break and to plan my next Halloween special. Yeah October is still a bit far out but I need all the time to set up my reviews. So coming up this October its Jamie Lee Curtis Month, stay tuned folks.
