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.

Both "Scanner Cop" and "Scanner Cop 2" can be used as examples to contradict people if they claim that cool and amusing horror movies didn't get made during the 1990s. They may not be masterpieces, but these spinoffs to David Cronenberg's magnificent classic "Scanners" (1981) are action-packed, entertaining, and extremely gore!

Troubled Scanner and young Brad Dourif lookalike Sam Staziak once more needs to control and wisely divide all his powers, this time to defeat a maniacal scanner - Karl Volkin - who found a method to literally drain and absorb the abilities of other Scanners. Volkin is buffing up to confront Staziak because he killed his brother by using his scanning skills during a police intervention.

The script of "Scanner Cop 2" isn't groundbreaking or particularly clever, but it does offer an unpretentious, exhilarating, and straightforward cat-and-mouse situation between a likeable hero and a loathsome villain. The latter, played by Patrick Kilpatrick, is responsible for several of the most sadistic, excruciatingly painful, gooey, and splattery murder sequences of the entire 90s decade. What Volkin does to his fellow Scanners to obtain their abilities is beyond sadistic, as he drains and pulverizes them like a vampire without teeth. Their skin burns, their entire body melts, and their corpses remain behind unidentifiable. Special effects and make-up wizard John Carl Buechler must have tremendously enjoyed himself during this assignment. What makes it extra cruel is that most of these people didn't even (ab)use their scanner skills and were trying to lead a normal life.

This is immediately less engaging than the previous film, far less interesting. It takes 30 minutes before anything interesting happens. The story and characters are far less fun. It's actually quite a boring tale of revenge with none of the depth of complexity of the previous film. Scanners (1981) and Scanner Cop (1994) are the only ones worth watching in this franchise and even then it's hard to recommend them. I guess I should appreciate that they didn't try to use bad nineties CGI. Overall some good practical effects let down by an unimaginative and boring story.

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

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.