- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0 (48kHz/16-bit), English LPCM 2.0 (48kHz/16-bit)
- Subtitles: English SDH
- Subtitles Color: White
- Region: B (Region-Locked)
- Certificate: 18
- Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
- Digital Copies: N/A
- Run Time: 103 Mins.
- Studio: Second Sight Films
- Blu-ray Release Date: April 8, 2013
- List Price: £15.99
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Overall
[Rating:1.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:0.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:2/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(The below TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Film
[Rating:0.5/5]
Director Christian Duguay returns to helm this third and final passage in the Scanners horror saga involving people with telepathic and telekinetic abilities they acquired due to their mothers having used an experimental drug during pregnancy. What started as an interesting horror/thriller from David Cronenberg in the original Scanners, with slick production values and a high level of acting and plot development, quickly diverged into comic book territory and B-grade filmmaking with Scanners II. By the time we get to Scanners III: The Takeover, all but the most avid genre devotees will be asking why this film is even necessary. The dark, psychological thriller overtones are all but forgotten here. Instead camp, comedy, and over-the-top set pieces adorn a trite plot concerning an adoptive brother and sister set against each other when she (Liliana Komorowska) takes an experimental drug, EPH-3, designed to cure the “scanner” mutation, but turns evil instead and tries to rally an army of scanners to take over the world. Among some of the more outlandish scenes involve patricide in a hot tub, an explosive kickboxing fight sequence in Thailand, and a rooftop shootout. Taken in its parts there are certainly some sequences here that fans of the low budget cult horror genre could find to like, but this movie is far less than the sum of its pieces, I’m afraid.
Video Quality
[Rating:2/5]
Paralleling the declining slope in quality for each film in this Scanners trilogy, Scanners III: The Takeover looks the worst by far out of the three being brought to Blu-ray by Second Sight Films. It’s almost as if, just like the filmmakers ran out of steam, ideas, or whatever, the folks transferring the films to high definition did the same, and the third film is the softest, noisiest, and suffers the most from wash out in darker areas.
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
The soundtracks provided are the same as the previous two films, with an English LPCM 2.0 (48kHz/16-bit) stereo track and a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0 surround track. The surround track offers a sufficient amount of clarity in the dialogue, but the surround channels carry only ambience that widens the reasonably spacious stereo field a bit more.
Supplemental Materials
Nothin’ doin’.
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:1.5/5]
Scanners III: The Takeover offers a regrettable end to what began as a strong and groundbreaking franchise in its first film. This is one trilogy that should not have gone on without its original creator, and this third and final film in the franchise the strongest evidence of that.
Additional Screen Captures
[amazon-product region=”uk” tracking_id=”bluraydefinit-21″]B00BGS0C26[/amazon-product]
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.co.uk
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[amazon-product region=”uk” tracking_id=”bluraydefinit-21″]B00BGS0C26[/amazon-product]
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.co.uk
Overall
[Rating:1.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:0.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:2/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
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