Gruesome Cronenberg in Montana
This evening, as part of a tribute to David Cronenberg that runs once a week for the rest of October, the Roxy Theater in Missoula, Montana, will present a screening of the director’s 1981 Scanners. With his accomplished seventh feature, Cronenberg injected his unique brand of visceral horror with a dose of the conspiratorial thriller, imagining a world in which a shadowy corporation seeks to track down and exploit “scanners,” people with telepathic and telekinetic abilities, some of whom are bent on nothing less than world domination. The Canadian director’s heady film, his first to find a significant audience in the United States, also featured one of the most mind-blowing spectacles—literally speaking—in the body-horror genre. For a fascinating rundown of exactly how the filmmaker and his crew went about creating this shocking moment, watch this excerpt from a documentary about Scanners’ special effects included on our edition of the film.
