There are bad sequels, and then there are sequels that feel like they were made on a dare. Scanners II: The New Order is firmly in the latter category, a direct-to-video Canadian “thriller” that proves not every franchise needs a second chapter—especially when your first one peaked with a guy’s head exploding in glorious slow-motion.
This follow-up manages to be both a cheap Xerox of David Cronenberg’s 1981 original and a mind-numbing PSA about how police corruption is bad. Imagine all the gore, tension, and body-horror allegory of the original boiled down into a story about a crooked commissioner who wants to… become chief of police? That’s right. Forget controlling the world or launching a Scanner uprising. The big evil plan here is rigging city hall like an off-brand West Wing. It’s less “new world order” and more “small-town mayoral race gone wrong.”
The Hero: A Veterinarian Turned Walking MRI
Our protagonist is David Kellum (David Hewlett), a veterinary intern who spends most of the film looking like he’s just smelled expired milk. David discovers he can read minds when he strolls through the city and hears everyone’s thoughts at once—a scene that’s supposed to show the horror of psychic overload, but really just feels like someone left multiple radios on in a dentist’s office.
David’s powers escalate quickly: one moment he’s zoning out in class, the next he’s making a criminal’s head explode like a microwaved grapefruit. This attracts the attention of Commissioner Forrester, a man with the charisma of a soggy parking ticket. Forrester recruits David as his Scanner cop, and David agrees, because apparently veterinary school wasn’t keeping him busy enough.
The Villain: Commissioner PTA Meeting
Forrester (Yvan Ponton) isn’t exactly the kind of villain you’d expect in a movie about psychic superhumans. He doesn’t want to enslave humanity, topple governments, or weaponize Scanners for global domination. Nope. His big goal is to manipulate the mayor into making him chief of police. That’s it. Imagine Magneto using his mutant army not to fight humanity, but to secure a promotion in the NYPD. It’s the kind of small-minded villainy that screams, “We wrote this script in a Tim Hortons parking lot.”
He’s assisted by Peter Drak (Raoul Trujillo), a Scanner with all the subtlety of a Monster Energy drink. Drak is your classic henchman—growly, mean, and perpetually sweaty—but even his “evil Scanner” routine wears thin when you realize his entire purpose is to grunt, lose psychic battles, and look like he desperately needs electrolytes.
The Drug: Eph2 — “Now with More Addiction!”
The film trots out a new drug, Eph2, a descendant of the original Ephemerol from Scanners. Eph2 calms Scanners but is horribly addictive, which raises the question: who exactly was funding this research? It feels less like a sinister government plot and more like Big Pharma trying to market NyQuil for telepaths. Forrester hands it out like candy, and every time someone injects it, the movie pauses as though it just unveiled a groundbreaking plot twist. Spoiler: it didn’t.
Family Matters: Surprise, You’re a Legacy Character!
Because sequels love retroactive family trees, David eventually learns he’s the son of Cameron Vale and Kim Obrist, the heroes from the first Scanners. This revelation has all the impact of being told you’re distantly related to a guy who once sold insurance in Winnipeg. There’s no emotional weight, no dramatic payoff—just a perfunctory “oh by the way” before David trots off to find his sister Julie, who looks less like a hardened survivor and more like she wandered out of a soap opera.
Together, the siblings form the blandest duo since plain rice met unsalted crackers. They storm Forrester’s Scanner lab, which looks like a middle school science fair project gone feral, and proceed to frown their way toward justice.
The Kills: Discount Explosions
If you came here for exploding heads, temper your expectations. The original Scanners gave us one of the most iconic gore shots of the ’80s, a practical effect so juicy it became the film’s entire brand. Scanners II tries to replicate that magic, but on a budget that couldn’t buy you lunch at a hockey game.
Instead of memorable effects, we get quick cuts, shaky close-ups, and victims clutching their temples like they just realized they left the stove on. Heads bulge a little, maybe a nosebleed, and then—cut away. The film acts like it’s hiding the gore for suspense, but we all know the truth: it’s hiding the fact they couldn’t afford latex dummies.
The Plot: Law & Order: Psychic Unit
The story trudges along like a half-baked cop show. David is ordered to manipulate the mayor into giving Forrester his promotion, but then he feels guilty because, shocker, mind-controlling elected officials is unethical. This moral awakening leads him to confess to the mayor, who immediately gets killed for her honesty. The message? Don’t tell the truth in a Scanner movie.
David spends the rest of the runtime playing hide-and-seek with Drak, having heartfelt chats about adoption, and finally confronting Forrester in the most anticlimactic climax imaginable. There’s no psychic duel worthy of the franchise—just Forrester flailing with a shotgun before David and Julie mush his face into Play-Doh with their minds. Cronenberg would cry.
The Performances: Everyone Looks Tired
David Hewlett tries, bless him, but he delivers his lines like he’s worried the boom mic might explode his head too. Deborah Raffin as Julie mostly exists to get tranquilized and provide exposition. Yvan Ponton as Forrester chews the scenery with the gusto of a man who knows he’s never escaping Canadian television. And Raoul Trujillo as Drak looks like he’s perpetually constipated, which, given the script, might be the most honest performance here.
The Real Horror: A Franchise Without Cronenberg
The real tragedy of Scanners II is how thoroughly it misunderstands what made the first film compelling. Cronenberg’s original wasn’t just about gore—it was about paranoia, identity, and the invasive horror of losing control of your own body. The New Order strips all that away, leaving behind a limp procedural where psychic powers are used not to explore existential dread but to rig city politics. It’s like taking Jaws and turning the sequel into Shark 2: Beach Parking Dispute.
Final Judgment: Direct-to-Video, Direct-to-Trash
Scanners II: The New Order is the cinematic equivalent of a store-brand soda: technically recognizable, but flat, cheap, and vaguely disappointing. The effects are neutered, the story is laughable, and the characters are as bland as a Canadian winter. If the original Scanners blew your mind, this sequel will numb it—and not in a good way.
By the time David makes his big speech on live TV about Scanners wanting to live in peace, you’ll be too busy ejecting the VHS tape (or closing the YouTube window, let’s be real) to care. It’s less “new order” and more “please, order me a drink so I can forget this movie exists.”
