Scanners II: The New Order / Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Scanners II: The New Order / Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 10, 2013

David Cronenberg wasn’t quite yet “David Cronenberg” when he made the original Scanners in 1981 (currently available on Blu-ray only on a number of import releases, including this United Kingdom version, a German version, and this Japanese version). But Scanners was the first major mainstream success Cronenberg experienced, and it introduced many viewers to the deliberately skewed and often disturbing vision of this future auteur. My hunch is that this early in Cronenberg’s career, he simply didn’t have the clout to effectively control his own creation, and so some decidedly un-Cronenbergian talents came along to offer two unrelated (either to the original or frankly to each other) sequels. Neither film has Cronenberg’s sensibility, nor the flash and flair that Cronenberg regularly brings to his projects. Scanners II: The New Order is marginally better than Scanners III: The Takeover (which also had the alternate title of Scanner Force), but its an incremental difference at best. Still, as with virtually every horror film that has appeared since the dawn of time, both of these films have attained a certain cult status with some viewers, and Scream Factory has now released both of them on a double feature Blu-ray, a bare bones release that contains no supplements or even any menu choices other than the option of which film to play.

For complete reviews of the films in this double feature, please see the individual releases:

Scanners II Blu-ray review

Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray review

Scanners II: The New Order / Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For complete reviews of the video quality of the films in this double feature, please see the individual releases:

Scanners II Blu-ray review

Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray review

Scanners II: The New Order / Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For complete reviews of the audio quality of the films in this double feature, please see the individual releases:

Scanners II Blu-ray review

Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray review

Scanners II: The New Order / Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Scanners II: The New Order / Scanners III: The Takeover Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cronenberg's original Scanners may not in fact be one of the director's greatest or most defining films, but it at least had a palpable mood and it evidenced a firm directorial hand. These two sequels are pretty lame affairs. The first sequel has some tangential character connections to Cronenberg's opus even as it treads over much the same material as the first film, but the second sequel is just a mad scramble for a little extra box office cash. It's enough to make your head explode.