I sometimes see director/franchise producer Pierre David's Scanner Cop referred to as a spin-off, and, beyond the altered title, I'm dumbfounded as to why. Is it because it switches up sub-genres? That wouldn't make sense, as Scanners III already did the same. Perhaps it is because it marks the first entry in the series to ultimately score a direct sequel? No matter the reason, given the stand-alone nature of all the sequels thus far, you either have to count all of them as spin-offs or none of them. There's no in-between. No matter how you slice it, Scanner Cop is Scanners IV.
This time around, we have moved on from the comedic '80s-style action of the last entry and have settled on early '90s cop films as our sub-genre of choice. The film opens with derelict scanner Staziak and his son Samuel holed up in a dingy apartment. They've run out of Ephemerol to help regulate their sensitivity to those in the city around them, and Daddy has final tipped over into insanity. He starts to go apeshit, the cops arrive and Papa Staziak is killed. The senior officer on the scene, Peter Harrigan (Richard Grove) takes pity on young Samuel, and, after a horrific visit to a local psychiatric hospital, Pete decides to take him in so that he and his wife may raise him as their own. Cut to 15 years later, Samuel Staziak (Daniel Quinn) has graduated from the academy and joins the Los Angeles Police Force, where his father is now a commander. He's tossed onto the streets with a gruff older partner and sent out to do some good.
Little do they all know, terror awaits the city and its police in the form of disgruntled escaped mental patient Karl Glock (Richard Lynch). Glock has a particular talent for brainwashing those he captures, and, with the help of femme fatale Zena (Hilary Shepard), he begins reprogramming everyday citizens to fear any uniformed officer they come across and to murder them on sight. A wave of these seemingly-unrelated violent acts sweeps the city, leaving the police department befuddled as to the cause. Making matters worse is the fact that the few surviving perps are left catatonic after their insidious acts, which leads Commander Harrigan to turn to the one person he knows who can pull the needed information from their now feeble minds: his scanner adopted son turned cop, Samuel.
If you are waiting for me to introduce another science fiction or horror element beyond Samuel himself, you're wasting your time. Scanner Cop is first and foremost a cop thriller. Remove Samuel's abilities and you still have a plot that could function as its own stand-alone actioner or even as part of a series like Lethal Weapon. Hell, Samuel is even on edge throughout most of the film because the need to use his abilities to fight crime necessitates him no longer taking Ephemerol daily. One could even read a bit of the old "dropping the habit to become a better cop" cliché into it, though it is more of a surface detail than anything else. That's par for the course when it comes to this sub-genre though. As for the main plot, there's nothing so outlandish in Glock's fiendish plan that would seem out of place in any other cop thriller of the early '90s. The only thing that makes this stand out from those is that our protagonist just happens to be a scanner.
Let's pull back a bit though. Scanners were already known about within the secret branches of government and the pharmaceutical industry in the very first film. That knowledge extended to some other agencies by the start of the second, but at the very end of Scanners II, their existence was revealed to the world. Were there riots in the streets, protests and public hearings? Nope. Judging from the comments made by ancillary characters in Scanners III, their existence had already faded into urban myth by then. Perhaps it was all covered up and downplayed by the government? Or perhaps people just didn't give a shit and mostly forgot about it all? I'm leaning towards a bit of Column A and a bit of Column B. Arriving at Scanner Cop, it's clear that medical professionals and some law enforcement have heard of their existence, but few have ever actually seen one. On the whole, it's mostly shrugged off as nonsense, particularly by the always-welcome Mark Rolston's Lt. Brown.*
As you can see, the film just isn't concerned with the franchise's mythology, and, after a short exposition scene early on, the plot just moves along and focuses solely on the crime story at hand. I love that. I love that this is a violent cop flick that happens to have a scanner as the protagonist. As much as I loved the gonzo glee of the last film, getting an entry that doesn't have countless scanner battles, a conspiracy or a world domination plot at the center of it brings a smile to my face. It's just a massive breath of fresh air. That the film is actually really good on top of that just makes it that much sweeter.
That's right, Scanner Cop is the best sequel in the series thus far and also a damn good little cop actioner to boot. As I mentioned earlier in the week, this was the only sequel that I had seen from this franchise prior to the start of this particular column. I recalled enjoying it years ago but hadn't seen it since and was a little worried that it might not hold up. I was wrong. The film is well-made, well-paced and well-acted for a film of this era. It seems like they spent a little more time and money on this one and it absolutely paid off.
I'm really digging this series as a whole so far. Scanners II was a certainly a hiccup in terms of quality, but the third film was a pleasant surprise and I had a wonderful time rediscovering this one. Here's hoping that Scanner Cop II, the last installment in the series to date, continues the trend.
*Speaking of character actors, personal favorite Brion James pops up in a very short cameo. Awesome, right? Sadly, not so much. For whatever reason, all of his lines are dubbed! I'd love to know what lead to that head-scratching decision. Given the mostly forgotten status of this film, however, I doubt we will ever know.
