Scanner Cop, 1994

Sam Staziak like his father is a scanner, one day he witnesses his father lose control when they have run out of medication which helps block their power to scan. The owner of the hotel they are living in gets the police involved to remove them due to Sam's father screaming in pain and hallucinating due to being able to read all in the building’s minds. In a small standoff between the police and the hotel owner, his father uses his power to throw one police officer through the wall and nearly kills the other before he is shot dead by the hotel owner. One of the police officers, Peter, after finding out Sam is a scanner and may face experiments on him adopts him with his wife.

Years later and Sam has followed in his adoptive father’s footsteps and become a police officer. During this time there is a rash of cop killings committing by people who have had no trouble with the police in the past.

Sam is asked to use his scanning power to help find those responsible before it is too late but also faces the possibility of losing his mind like his father when he stops taking his medication that blocks it.

Scanner Cop is a sequel of sorts to David Cronenberg's Scanners but has a link via director Pierre David to the original as he was one of the producers and for a few of Cronenberg's earlier films.

I enjoyed this film more than I expected, it has some really good effects when it comes to some of the gory scenes, one of the final scenes being a funny when a skull plate gets blown away! I think I assumed with it being a 90's film it may not hold up to the original but it does, maybe not a violent but still enough to hold my attention. 

Decent story although I wanted to know more about Sam's past before he was adopted, like is there a connection to other scanners from the first movie or not? Though as there is a Scanner Cop 2, I assume this may get covered in that.

It has recently been given a 4K/Blu Ray boxset by Vinegar Syndrome, who have done a great job with it. It also has the second film included. It has made me want to dig out Scanners again as been a while since I've seen that and also look for Scanners II & III as never seen them before.