Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Comeuppance Reviews Det. Sam Staziak (Quinn) is not simply a Cop On the Edge, he's a scanner Cop On the Edge. As a member of the L.A.P.D., he's used his scanning abilities to thwart bad guys city-wide. His Captain, Jack Bitters (Forster), supports him, but Staziak is having some personal issues, as he's trying to find his mother. Towards this end, he's enlisted the help of fellow scanner Carrie Goodart, who runs the Trans-Neural Resource Center, sort of a non-profit group by and for scanners. But a new threat looms in the form of Karl Volkin, an evil, malevolent scanner who's going around the city killing other scanners in his quest to be the ultimate scanner. Like a vampire, he feeds off their power and is growing more and more strong by the day. Looks like it's time for the ultimate showdown: Staziak vs. Volkin in a mind-melting duel to the death. Who will prevail? We liked Scanner Cop II (or Scanners: The Showdown, as the VHS we viewed has it). As a sci-fi sequel, we went in expecting the worst. But it's really not bad. There are a lot of interesting scanner-based ideas, such as using scanning power for good or evil, the vampiric scanner, and the scanner killing other scanners for scanner domination. Did we use the word "scanner" enough yet? There are other ideas woven into the plot as well, which helped immensely. If there are ideas that are reasonably well-thought-out, it's hard to go totally wrong, and thankfully the writers knew that so they developed certain thoughts. It's all perfect for the video stores and pay cable outfits of the 90's. On top of that, there are some cool and gory effects, making Scanner Cop II better than expected.Patrick Kilpatrick usually plays a baddie and here you get to see him at the height of his evil powers. Robert Forster does almost a sit-down role but he adds color and professionalism to the proceedings. Kane Hodder and Jewel Shepard appear in small roles, but the true star of the show isn't Quinn, it's a man we think is named Julian Neil (but we're not sure) who plays "Kidnapper Leader". This bad guy who is not important to the plot at all, gives an insanely over the top performance. He has a highly comical Muppet voice and he just about steals the movie with his brief screen time. This guy should have gone far.We have a screener copy (not to be confused with a scanner copy) of this on VHS from Republic Pictures. In a packaging move we haven't seen anywhere else, there's a gatefold flap that unfolds from the left hand side of the box. We don't know if it reached stores with this added value piece. It might be just for the screener, or perhaps just for the Canada VHS, which is where it was released as Scanners: The Showdown. We thought this was worth mentioning because it was so unusual.In all, Scanner Cop II was way better than we thought it would be.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com

Paul Andrews Scanner Cop II like the original features scanner Samuel Staziak (Daniel Quinn) who has now made detective in the L.A.P.D. Samuel is currently trying to locate his natural birth Mother & enlists the help of Carrie Goodart (Khrystyne Haje) who happens to be a scanner herself & runs the 'Trans Neurol Research Center', an organisation set up to help scanners such as themselves. Samuel now takes a special form of Ephemerol which lets him have all the advantageous abilities associated with being a scanner without any of the negative side effects. Samuel often puts his scanner ability to good use in the fight against crime in Los Angeles but Samuel's past returns to haunt him. A powerful, & mad, scanner named Karl Volkin (Patrick Kilpatrick) is out for revenge after Samuel put him away in a bust that ended up with Karl's Brother being shot dead. Karl has developed a way to absorb other scanners power & life-force thus increasing his, in a fight to the death Samuel must face the most dangerous adversary he ever has...Directed by Steve Barnett, who also is credited as post-production supervisor, this is the second & to date last Scanner Cop film which in itself was a spin-off from David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981), a film which I personally can't get on with at all despite it's good reputation. In a series of just two films there is a 50/50 chance that Scanner Cop II will be better than it's predecessor Scanner Cop (1994) right? Well unfortunately even with those odds it isn't, although having said that it's not too far behind it & it's still a fairly decent way to pass 90 odd minutes. The script by Mark Sevi moves along at a nice enough pace but feels very similar to the original. Also like the original Scanner Cop II is as much a police thriller as horror & the decision to take Samuel out of uniform & into plain clothes as a detective was a bad one in my opinion, this is just another cop in a leather jacket running around lifted straight from any number of 80's & 90's low budget action films. The uniform gave Samuel a certain vulnerability & distinctiveness which is missing here as he uses his powers to sort situations out like freeing hostages & in the process defusing a bomb by simply staring at it. In the original Samuel had conflicts with himself & was a well developed character with more depth than usual but in this he is just your average 'save-the-day' action hero with a bad hair cut.Director Barnett takes over from Pierre David who acts as producer here, he directs with competence but Scanner Cop II has no real style to it. The special make-up effects could have been better & the gore is somewhat restrained, there are some splitting, bubbling, pulsating skin effects & melted bodies but little else except for the obligatory head explosion which you have to wait until the last five minutes to see & frankly it isn't worth the wait & doesn't even come close to the fabulous exploding head from Cronenberg's original.With a very healthy sounding budget of about $4,000,000 Scanner Cop II should look a hell of a lot better than it does, I mean 4 big ones is a lot of cash for a film such as this, I really can't see where the money went. No major stars, no big action scenes, very limited special effects & only one split second head explosion? You tell me where the money went. The acting was OK & Kilpatrick has a certain intensity & makes for a good villain (am I the only one who thinks he looks like Michael Ironside?) but Quinn definitely isn't all guns blazing action hero material.Scanner Cop II is a decent enough way to pass 90 odd minutes but just don't expect any kind of classic, worth a watch especially if you enjoyed the original.

leathaface This movie, like the other Scanner movies made past the first one, had good make-up effects, but also some less-than-par acting (the hold-up/hostage scene with the three thugs was so bad it was hilarious). But other than that, the movie was very entertaining in my opinion. Carl Volkin, played by the intimidating-looking Pat Kilpatrick, is an escaped criminal scanner on the loose, trying to become the most powerful scanner in the world. He accomplishes this by draining the life force of various scanners around the city, resulting in some bizarre melting/death sequences. In the end he has to contend with Sam Staziak, the most useful cop on the police force (obviously). There's a few cool-looking face-contorting illusion sequences, and a head explosion in the end (of course). Overall this movie was fast-paced, the acting was a little hard to swallow, but the special effects were awesome for a b-movie. I'd recommend it if you like innovative sci-fi or cop action movies.

mythicfox Scanner Cop 2 is decent, for a B-Movie. It's certainly watchable. It's not as bad as, say, Scanners 3, but it certainly has its moments. However, I personally feel the movie was cheapened a bit... a constant point of stress in the Scanners universe involved the inner struggle between using Scanner powers and experiencing the side effects, or taking the drugs that dull their powers, possibly becoming addicted and becoming vegetables in the process (as shown by Scanners 2). In this movie, a new Ephemerol is magically created to allow the scanner cop to use his abilities with no penalty, without going nuts in the process. True, addition of this plot point may have possibly taken some of the focus from the movie, but that would be like making a Batman movie which completely ignores the blow dealt to Batman's social life by is 'nightly job'. But I'm getting off-track. Scanner Cop 2 is definitely a good movie, compared to some of the others in the series.