Scanner Cop (1994)

Since Richard Lynch left us last week I've been thinking of watching and writing a few words about one of his movies. Scanner Cop, the third sequel to David Cronenberg's masterpiece (yes) Scanners might be an odd choice, but I find it fitting because it was in exploitation, DTV, trashy medium budgeted movies and other oddities that Richard Lynch always belonged. Make not mistake, he was always excellent and that's why many of these movies was worth watching. Produced by the legendary exploitation master Pierre David, Scanner Cop is actually not a bad movie at all. It's a lot better than Scanners 2 and 3 - especially the last one who became extremely silly.

Daniel Quinn, who could be the illegitimate son of Brad Dourif, plays Samuel Staziak, the son of a scanner. He also have the power, but after his fathers death a kind policeman, Peter Harrigan (Richard Grove) and his wife takes care of Samuel - who grows up to be a cop also. Suddenly normal people attacks and kills cops all over LA and there's a sinister force behind it all, the evil Evil EVIL doctor Karl Glock (Richard Lynch) who after being in a mental institution for many years wants to take revenge on the police force who stopped his experiments the last time. It's only Samuel who can go into the heads of the killers to find the man behind it all, but that also means he needs to stop taking the medicine that stops him from being... a scanner!

When Pierre David is the producer (and he also directed this one) you always know the movie WILL deliver in several ways: gore (or just cool effects), nudity and an interesting grittiness that makes his movies stand out from the rest of the DTV movies being produced. Scanner Cop has no nudity what I can remember now, but it has plenty of fun scanner-effects and hallucinations in form of a zombie, a vietcong soldier, Richard Lynch with a pulsating brain and a giant insect. The cast is fine, especially Daniel Quinn who gives it all in his performance. He both manages to look slightly perverted, when doing small harmless scanner-jokes, to frail and extremely dangerous when he's cornered.

But it's Richard Lynch who steals the show, as usual. Lynch, as you might now, wasn't an actor from the beginning - but after an "accident" involving LSD and gasoline he got his famous scared appearance, and a few years after he got his first part in Scarecrow - opposite Gene Hackman and Al Pacino and never stopped working after that. What's so special with Lynch is that he's not just an evil face, he actually could act. He could play human, show emotions - and had a sense of humour. He never lost his handsome looks and those eyes could pierce through the TV and fucking kill you if you didn't pay attention.

I always wanted to meet him and kinda hoped that he would show up at some nearby convention, for example Weekend of Horrors in Bottrop, but now it's too late.

Rest in peace Mr Lynch.

Richard Lynch 1940-2012