David Cronenberg‘s ‘future shock’ classic features a memorable turn by Michael Ironside as the superbly-monikered Daryl Revok, the evil leader of a renegade group of ‘Scanners’; mutant humans born with extreme telepathic and telekinetic powers who are capable of controlling machines and infiltrating the minds of others, often with head-popping consequences. The film is responsible for one of the best animated gifs on the internet.

This Japanese B2 features great artwork but I’ve been unable to identify the artist, so if you have any ideas please get in touch. The main figure is based on the one illustrated by Joann on the excellent British quad.

The film’s original British trailer is on YouTube (“You pray it will end…and it will!”).

David Cronenberg‘s ‘future shock’ classic Scanners features a memorable turn by Michael Ironside as the superbly-monikered Daryl Revok, the evil leader of a renegade group of ‘Scanners’; mutant humans born with extreme telepathic and telekinetic powers who are capable of controlling machines and infiltrating the minds of others, often with head-popping consequences. The film is responsible for one of the best animated gifs on the internet.

This British quad features great artwork by Joann Daley and a great tagline. It loses the headline seen on the US one sheet but retains the ’10 seconds…’ section.

Check out the equally great Japanese poster.

The film’s original British trailer is on YouTube (“You pray it will end…and it will!”).

This infamous holiday-themed slasher film caused major controversy upon its US release in 1984 and was withdrawn from cinemas a short time after. Because of the film’s subject matter (a degenerate spree-killer dressed as Santa Claus) and the fact that it was released at Christmas, there was condemnation from a number of different sources, including the American Parent Teacher Association who lobbied to have it removed from cinemas.

The film critics Siskel and Ebert infamously blasted the film and read out the names of the people and studios involved in its making followed by saying ‘shame on you’. Apparently there were also protests at cinemas around the US. Eventually the distributor of the film relented and started by pulling all print ads for the film, before withdrawing the film entirely.

Two years later it was re-released by a small distributor called Aquarius Films. The poster for that release was poor in comparison to this original design.

Here in the UK the film was never submitted to the BBFC and so wasn’t released at the cinema back in the 1980s. Independent distributors Arrow Films released it uncut on DVD in 2009.

This original release US poster surely ranks up there with one of the best slasher posters of all time. The tagline is something of a classic and neatly references the earlier holiday-themed slasher Halloween.

Here’s the superb original trailer on YouTube.