Scanners

Scanners are psychic people who can use their powers for good or for awesome. Or for evil. Or for exploding heads. Cameron Vail has just found out he's a scanner and Doctor Paul Ruth wants to use him to find an evil scanner named Darryl Revok. The doctor (I just can't bring myself to call him Doctor Ruth) thinks Revok is putting together a group of evil scanners hellbent on taking over the world, the jerk. In his quest to find Revok, Cameron meets a good scanner named Kim Oberst and she helps him to solve the mystery of the stuff that's happening. (Ain't I eloquent?)
I don't know how I feel about Scanners. I liked it, I suppose. David Cronenberg is a fine director and his movies tend to have good plots as well as good gore, so I really can't complain there. I guess my problem with the movie is my inability to understand why various characters do what they do. A lot of the movie made me feel like Cameron was about to turn to the dark side, but I also feel like there was never a proper explanation of what and why the dark side is. I understood various characters' alliances for the most part but ... I don't know. The climactic scene conveniently had a villainous monologue that tried to explain things but it came out backwards. I wasn't having trouble following the plot until that scene. Suddenly I'm supposed to think differently of certain characters without much rhyme or reason (I can't explain further than that without giving away a major twist), at least none that was adequate enough for my taste. I think I'd like to watch it again and see if I can figure out some things.
It's kind of too bad that Scanners is best known as "that movie where that guy's head explodes." It's definitely a cool shot and worth the price of admission, but the movie itself is good, too. The head explosion happens within the first fifteen minutes and the movie doesn't have a huge burst of gore like that again, although the climactic scene does get pretty gross. This was actually my second attempt (first successful one) at watching Scanners. The first time I saw it the shock of seeing Patrick McGoohan older and beardy (I'd only ever seen him in The Prisoner at that point) and the fact that the head explosion was over and done with so quickly made me lose interest early on. That and I guess the plot bored me (I think I've grown more patient with slow moving movies since then).
Now, though, I can honestly say I liked Scanners quite a bit. I think. I'll have to try and figure out the plot snarls before I can say for certain.

End of line.
-Sally