How They Shot the Head Explosion Scene in 'Scanners' (2024)
“If ever you want to blow up a head, I advise using kosher salt. But don’t do this at home.” – special effects artist Gary Zeller.
ByMeg Shields· Published on February 16th, 2021
Welcome to How’d They Do That? — a bi-monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off.This entry looks into the head explosion scene in Scanners.
Much like its infamously explosive setpiece, the making of Scannerswas a real headache.
With director David Cronenberg hot off The Brood, the abnormal time pressures of the Canadian tax-shelter era rushed Scanners into production without a script. With only two months to wrap principal photography, Cronenberg was forced to write and shoot the film simultaneously, all while managing a hectic production with his biggest budget to-date.
Luckily, Cronenberg’s notorious sense of calm prevailed, and Scanners was a box-office success. As close to a standard sci-fi thriller as Cronenberg ever came, Scanners dodged the genre marketing practices that had consistently worked against him in the past to deliver his first mainstream hit.
Scanners concerns an antisocial derelict named Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), who is recruited by the mysterious ConSec research agency as one of the world’s few hundred “scanners” — individuals born with remarkable telepathic and psychokinetic abilities. A ConSec doctor named Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan) tasks Vale with eliminating the megalomaniacal Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), a powerful scanner who intends to subjugate humanity, and all scanners who oppose him, with his gifts.
Set alongside the obsessive grotesques of Cronenberg’s earlier work, Scanners is a relatively tame entry from Canada’s Baron of Blood. With one explosive exception: a notoriously gory and shockingly visceral setpiece in the director’s career-long mind/body discourse.
Early in the film, we’re invited to a ConSec marketing event. A scanner (Louis Del Grande) gently declares that he will “scan” every person in attendance, one by one. From behind his thick mustache and even thicker glasses, he calmly explains that the process has been known to hurt a little. With that enticing caveat, he calls for his first volunteer. The people in the crowd exchange hesitant and doubting looks. Finally, a man in the back raises his hand. Unbeknownst to the lecturing scanner, and to us, this man is not supposed to be here. Not only that, this man isn’t just a man. This is Darryl Revok.
Revok descends towards the stage and, with a subliminally menacing air of faux-ignorance, follows the lecturer’s instructions. He focuses his mind. And it quickly becomes apparent that’s not all he’s doing. Something is terribly wrong. As Revok’s face contorts in concentration, the lecturer gasps for air and pounds his fists in discomfort that quickly escalates to agony. The pressure mounts and mounts until finally, abruptly, the lecturer’s head explodes. His face balloons outward, his eyes pop forward, and horribly viscous gore erupts in all directions; a scarlet mushroom cloud of skin, brain, bone, and flesh.
As the shoot wore on and nothing seemed to be working, special effects supervisor Gary Zeller told everyone to keep their cameras rolling, to get into their cars, and roll the windows up. He then lay down underneath the head with a shotgun, pointed it up beneath the back of it, and fired.
When other explosive techniques failed to give the desired effect, special effects supervisor Gary Zeller told the crew to roll cameras and get inside their trucks with doors and windows closed; he then lay down behind the dummy and shot it in the back of the head with a shotgun.
The film ends with Cameron scanning his way into Revok's body and taking control, leaving his own corpse behind. I was immediately struck by the fact that Scanners treats the idea of telepathy with complete seriousness. Not one person scoffs or questions the existence of telepathy in this world, which was refreshing.
The exact cause of exploding head syndrome remains unclear. However, some theories suggest that it could result from minor seizures in the temporal lobe or parts of the middle ear moving during the night. Fear, emotional stress, or anxiety may also contribute to the condition.
However, it was recently revealed that Victoria Neuman is not only a Supe herself, but she is none other than the infamous "Head-Popper" who murdered Susan Raynor, Jonah Vogelbaum, Alastair Adana, and several other members of Congress.
As Scanners comes to a close, Vale is captured by Revok and learns a bitter truth: the two of them are brothers, and Dr. Ruth — killed earlier in the film — is their father.
Scanners II: The New Order is a 1991 Canadian science fiction thriller film. It is a sequel to the 1981 feature film Scanners with a different cast, starring David Hewlett, Deborah Raffin, Raoul Trujillo, and Yvan Ponton.
Ephemerol, the fictional drug in Scanners, is administered to pregnant women as a sedative; the drug has the unintended side effect of making their children telepathic, a power which is described in the film as “the direct linking of two nervous systems separated by space” [3].
Reasonably entertaining. "Scanners II: The New Order" is about as decent a sequel as we could have gotten to David Cronenbergs' "Scanners". There are some good ideas in the screenplay by B. J. Nelson ("Lone Wolf McQuade"), and the story is watchable enough.
…an unnerving and challenging work of nihilistic prescience… Not destined to be a classic, nor even the best Cronenberg so far, Scanners is nonetheless an entertaining and often exciting horror-thriller.
David Cronenberg's 1981 body horror film Scanners tells the story of those who are born with the special ability to "scan" the nervous systems of other people, gaining knowledge of their thoughts and control over their bodies.
The death of the first scanner ('Victor Del Grande' ) was filmed in two different ways: the theatrical release has Revok (Michael Ironside) causing his head to explode; an alternate take, featured in television versions, shows him dying of a grotesque heart attack instead. The Sci-Fi Network has shown the scene intact.
That included Shockwave, a superhero working for Vought. Finally, in the season finale, we learned who was behind the head-popping: Congresswoman Victoria Neuman, who popped the head of Alastair Adana, the leader of the Church of the Collective.
An overhead scanner is shaped like an old-school projector, in that its scanner lens is mounted on a stem. The scanner lens then looks over a dark mat on which a document is placed.
Never use alcohol, thinner, or corrosive solvent to clean the scanner. These chemicals can damage the scanner components and the case. Be careful not to spill liquid into the scanner mechanism or electronic components. This could permanently damage the mechanism and circuitry.
Some researchers believe that exploding head syndrome may be linked to: stress and anxiety. minor seizures in the temporal lobe of your brain. sudden shifts in the parts of your middle ear.
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