Tubi Tuesday: Scanners 3 (1992)

Rather than trying to live up to the legacy of “Scanners”, the third entry in the franchise goes its way — and is far better than expected.

This month marks the start of the third year of Tubi Tuesday. To celebrate this momentous occasion, all of the Tubi recommendations this month will feature third entries in a horror franchise. We’re kicking things off with a perfectly insane, early ’90s straight-to-video sequel of a David Cronenberg classic that absolutely exceeds expectations.

This week’s Tubi Tuesday is Scanners 3: The Takeover.

I am not entirely certain if it was on purpose or completely accidental, but Scanners 3: The Takeover plays out more like a Kung-Fu movie than a Sci-Fi horror film.

The film opens at a Christmas party. It seems, since the events of the original Scanners movie, people with scanning abilities have become normalized in society. We find Alex Monet (Steve Parrish) doing scanning tricks for his friends at the party.

However, when a scanning trick goes bad and he accidentally pushes his friend out of the apartment — over the balcony and 30 floors to his death — he does the only logical thing that someone would do in a kung-fu movie. That is to go to a monastery in Thailand and learn how to control his ability with the monks.

He studies, meditates, and does all sorts of things to center his chi and control his abilities.

Meanwhile, however, his sister back home is using her scanning skills for evil.

After having a massive scanner headache, Helena (Liliana Komorowska) tries a new experimental therapy that her adopted father is developing. But a side effect is that it makes her absolutely vicious.

She kills a bird; she kills a doctor who tortured her as a child; she even makes her boyfriend do a whole song and dance routine in a restaurant, which is absolutely a must-see.  She eventually sends her deranged scanner goons to Thailand to execute her brother at a Muay Thai fight before killing her father and taking over his company with plans for global domination.

This sounds more like the plot of Kickboxer 3 than Scanners 3.

In typical kung-fu movie fashion, the assumed dead brother returns from exile to reclaim the honor of his family’s dojo…err…company before his evil sibling can destroy the world.

It’s filled with all sorts of actual kung-fu and an epic scanner vs scanner showdown for the ages.

Absolutely nothing like the original film but completely original and fun in its own right, Scanners 3: The Takeover is now streaming for free on Tubi.