Scanner Cop II

SCANNER COP II (1995) is the last (for now) and least of the SCANNER franchise and a direct sequel to the last one with Brad Dourif lookalike Daniel Quinn reprising his role of scanning detective Staziak. This time around, he's on the trail of a murdering psychopath who's given up taking his ephemerol to instead go on a city-wide killing spree, murdering other scanners to ingest their powers.

Where to start with this one? It's a real cheapie for sure, a straight-to-video enterprise that looks static and small scale. The plot is extremely limited and basically has the baddie killing people until he faces off with the cop at the end. That's it. Quinn's okay but the film really belongs to B-movie veteran heavy Patrick Kilpatrick who's having a ball as the orgasmic, demented villain. Robert Forster has a small role too. To make things a bit easier there are plenty of gooey and very slimy SFX courtesy of John Carl Buechler, always creative, and at least one crowd-pleasing head explosion.

While the loss of an interesting story is a shame, Scanner Cop II more than delivers plenty of genre highlights, offering an unpretentious, exhilarating and straightforward cat-and-mouse chase between a likeable hero and a loathsome villain. Director Steve Barnett brings us a grislier take on the Scanners universe, one with copious amounts of visceral violence that works wonders in the production's limited budget and unrefined style. It's not an escalation of Sam's cop story, but the film enjoys creating a mess, finding its happy place in blood and guts. Daniel Quinn once again turns in a good performance as our hero but like the previous film, it's stolen by the villain, this time played with excruciating sadism by Patrick Kilpatrick. Backed by another funky synth score, this time by Richard Bowers, Scanner Cop II introduces a bit of levity amidst the grim nature of its story, it isn't exactly groundbreaking but it does put on a major show of force when it comes to scanners and their destructive ways.

Karl Volkin (Patrick Kilpatrick) is a vengeance-crazed Scanner who's escaped from prison, and is hellbent on striking back at heroic Scanner cop Samuel Staziak (Brad Dourif look alike Daniel Quinn). What he does to work towards this end is suck the life out of other Scanners, leaving them twisted, burning hunks of flesh. He hopes to become even more powerful than his nemesis, and stops at nothing.

This is actually a pretty good B movie, made with competence (if not flamboyance) at every level. Its story, concocted by Mark Sevi, is ultimately very routine, but director Steve Barnett does keep us entertained. It's amusing, as it always is with these movies, to watch actors make all manner of faces as they unleash their devastating mental abilities. Volkin leaves quite the trail of bodies behind him, so viewers can take comfort in a respectable body count, as well as some reasonably impressive (if protracted) makeup effects sequences devised by John Carl Buechler and his company.

The cast gives it their best effort. Quinn is a decent enough good guy, but he's outshone by veteran movie villain Kilpatrick, who's fun to watch. A number of recognizable actors pop up along the way, although Robert Forster is given precious little to do as Staziaks' superior officer. Khrystyne Hage ('Head of the Class'), Stephen Mendel, Brenda Swanson, Jerry Potter, and Jewel Shepard ("The Return of the Living Dead") co-star, while Eugene Robert Glazer ('La Femme Nikita'), Allan Kolman (Cronenbergs' "Shivers"), Aaron Lustig ("Bad Channels"), and none other than Kane Hodder have small parts.

A worthy follow up to "Scanner Cop".

Seven out of 10.

once again,we have B movie with Z grade acting.the dialogue in this one,as in the previous Scanner Cop movie is cringe worthy and delivered the same way.thought the acting wasn't great in this one,our hero,played by Daniel Quinn,has actually improved from the previous movie.not a lot,but some.i didn't find the story particularly compelling,and again,like in the previous film,i really did care either way about the characters.except for one.that would be the villain played by Patrick Kilpatrick.i don't know what it is,but the guy makes a great villain.he just has some quality.plus,in this movie,he was really having fun with the role.one other thing i want to mention.the movie was far too disgusting,for no reason.i don't mind disgust when it serves a purpose,but that isn't the case in this movie.anyway,my vote for Scanner Cop II is a 4.5/10

After pitting psychic policeman Sam Staziak (Daniel Quinn) against a non-scanner in Scanner Cop, it's back to the old 'good scanner vs bad scanner' formula for this follow up. The villain of the piece is Karl Volkin (Patrick Kilpatrick), who uses his psychic powers to suck the essence from other scanners, making himself more powerful with each victim, his final target being Staziak, with whom he has a score to settle.

Despite a rather predictable plot and so-so performances, Scanner Cop II is a reasonably fun piece of straight-to-video silliness, director Steve Barnett keeping things moving along at a decent pace, delivering several effectively gruesome set-pieces along the way. Volkin's attacks are the highlights of the film, the evil scanner causing his victims to rupture and melt into unrecognisable gooey piles of flesh, the impressive special effects by makeup man John Carl Buechler. There's also a fun scene in a warehouse where the bad guy almost gets the better of Staziak, using his brain power to control forklift trucks. Of course, Staziak ultimately wins the day, tricking the villain into using up all of his ill-gotten power before giving him a taste of his own medicine, with explosive results (it's a scanners film... there had to be an exploding head somewhere, and it's a messy one!).

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.