DVD Review: Scanners 3 - The Takeover

Christian Duguay knew he dropped the ball with ‘Scanners 2 – The New Order’, so this time around with ‘Scanners 3 – the Takeover’ (or ‘Scanner Force’ as it was originally called in the UK) he tries to max out the action and throw in some nudity too. It’s always been the case with low budget horror and action flicks, and indeed it is also part of their charm, that in order to stop the movie sagging in places, just have a perky pair on show and that should keep your mainly male audience amused. Well this does not claim to have any following on from any of the characters from the first two movies and the once powerful scanners are almost like an urban myth. Alex Monet (Steve Parish) is one such scanner. He uses his powers more for party tricks and the scanners of now are much more at ease with society and fitting in. Their discomfort of being around people is reduced to a few minor headaches. At a party Alex is showing off, and a friend dies in a tragic accident. This is far too much to bear and the only remedy is to seek solace from those of the most highly spiritually enlightened Buddhists in the far reaches of the Tibetan mountains. Back at home Alex’s father, Dr. Elton Monet (Colin Fox) is developing his new drug, yup that’s right it is a derivative of Ephemerol, now called Eph-3. This is far from being out in the open market but his daughter Helena (Liliana Komorowska) cannot wait that long. She, against her father’s wishes tries the drug on herself and this prissy little girl next door is turned into a megalomaniac with a sadistic line in pain for those who stand in her way.

First thing first, get rid of her father and then take over his company, then the next step is simply world domination. Actually Helena vamps it up so much that it seems she has fallen out from the panto season and her outfits would fit more in line with the likes of a supervillain from the 60’s camp ‘Batman’ TV series. It seems no one can stop her. She gets some of the most bizarre looking scanners in any part of this series so far, as a start of her army, and they become almost a caricature of cartoon villainies. We have a scanner nurse looking like a porn queen on steroids, a reject from the Ant Hill mob and a high-flying kicker to name just a few. Alex is contacted with news of his father’s death and back home he travels but not before some scanner mayhem and some kickboxing are flung into the mix for good measure. Now back in the USA he contacts his sister and his ex-girlfriend, who he gets it right on with and who tells him of her concern for Helena’s change of character. Yup you know there’s going to be a family scanner face off, and in homage to ‘Videodrome’, Helena’s master plan about sending scanner signals over the TV is uncovered.

As stated previously there are some gratuitous nude scenes that had not been present in this series beforehand, and the action is upped too. Here though, that is not a good thing, the effects have much to be criticised, smoke can be seen to be coming from a canister underneath a motorcycles exhaust and each time a character is catapulted through the air their support harness and wires are clearly visible. It does have a head explosion in what seems to have become a regular staple of the scanner movie. That said, it is still better than part 2. Here we have a good transfer and sound options of Stereo 2.0 channel, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS. ‘Inside Scan’ continues with Alan Jones being all too familiar that this is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. Some trailers for the trilogy and a few text notes and biogs end the extra quotient. 'Scanners 3 - The Takeover' is available via AmazonUK and as of yet has no US release date, and is also available as part of a trilogy boxed set.
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