Another month and another spotlight focused on a director. I kick off April's Director Spotlight of David Cronenberg with 1981's Scanners. Cronenberg, due to his fascination with the horror genre earned the nicknames "King of Venereal Horror" and "The Baron of Blood", not only directed this film but wrote it as well. Scanners is the movie that gave him his US upstart and popularity after being a hit in Canada.

Michael Ironside and Stephan Lack are the main characters in the fore-front of this film. Lack, who has only been in less than a dozen credited roles in his career, is the protagonist here while the antagonist is played excellently by Ironside. On a side note, I was shocked to learn Ironside has almost 200 credited roles to his resume. I knew he has been around the block, but not that many times.

Scanners is about a certain group of people born with the ability to scan other people's thoughts and in some more extreme cases, they can control them or simply make their heads explode. The storyline here is set about a group of 'underground' scanners gathering together to take control here while a facuility would not like to see that happen and recuit one to be their undercover agent of sorts. The climax here left me with an 'ugh' feeling.

Watching this movie had me comparing it to another older horror flick I watched recently, 1973's The Crazies by another horror legend George A. Romero. The reason for the comparison is that they are both early films in both director's careers that helped shape for greater things to come. While I really enjoyed Romero's film, this one left me content. Lack, excuse the pun, lack(ed) any interest that the viewers may want from a lead and simply gave us nothing to root for as the quote, unquote good guy here. The supporting cast of Patrick McGoohan and Jennifer O'Neill amongst others drew more likability and interest.

Overall, for the time period and genre that this film falls in, I thought it was alright. It wouldn't be a film I would say go out and rent but if its on cable late one night, give it a viewing. Cronenberg's other 80's films such as next week's The Fly or last month's reviewed The Dead Zone are more entertaining and worthwhile films to be watched. I give Scanners 2 1/2 pitchforks.