60
Metascore
8 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80TimeRichard CorlissTimeRichard CorlissCronenberg delivers.
- 80VarietyVarietyScanners offers at least one literally eye-popping moment and another that can only be called mind-blowing.
- 75TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineScanners is a memorable and absorbing genre entertainment.
- 63Boston GlobeJay CarrBoston GlobeJay CarrThe film is more interesting as a phenomenon than as a movie. [27 Feb 1981]
- 60Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrOne of the most technically proficient of David Cronenberg's early gnawing, Canadian-made horror movies, though it lacks both the logic and the queasy sexual subtext that made his still earlier work - "Rabid," "They Came From Within" - so memorably revolting.
- 60The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyUnfortunately the plot thickens so rapidly and so lumpily that one very soon loses interest in spite of the quite stunning and gory special effects.
- 50Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertScanners is a new horror film made with enough craft and skill that it could have been very good, if it could find a way to make us care about it.
- 50The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay ScottThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay ScottThe larger budget has given Scanners a high-gloss Hollywood look, the editing is occasionally elegant and the special effects, which consist mostly of imaginative ways of turning actors into meat, provoke from the audience the desired response ("Oh, yuk]"), but he is careful to keep the violence within currently accepted boundaries. [19 Jan 1981]