Scanners

Scanners is a Canadian science fiction horror film about a hidden minority of people with powerful telepathic abilities. Known as scanners, they can read minds, control the thoughts of others and inflict severe pain or death through mental force alone. Dr. Paul Ruth, a specialist in mental disorders, recruits one such man, Cameron Vale, to track down Darryl Revok, a far more dangerous scanner who leads a clandestine group of his kind. Its goal is domination over ordinary people, and Vale is drawn into the conflict against him, with help from Kim Obrist, who shares the same gift.

David Cronenberg wrote and directed the film. It was the fifth of the twenty-two features he has directed, following The Brood and preceding Videodrome. The cast includes Stephen Lack as Vale, Jennifer O'Neill as Obrist, Michael Ironside as Revok and Patrick McGoohan as Ruth, in a production with forty-nine credited cast and eighty-seven credited crew members. Claude Héroux produced.

Released in January 1981, the film runs 103 minutes and was made for about four million dollars, going on to earn roughly fourteen million worldwide. It holds a rating of 6.7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 67,000 votes and the same score on TMDB from about 1,400 votes, while a critics' rating also stands at 6.7 out of 10 from forty-five reviews, leaving audience and critical assessments closely aligned.