Scanners

Here are the children of Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack, later in a new body by Michael Ironside) and Kim Orbist (Jennifer O'Neill) from the first Scanners movie: David Kellum, whose real last name is Vale (played by David Hewlett) and Julie Vale (played by Deborah Raffin).

Plot summary

A crooked politician schemes to gain control of a major city by manipulating Scanners (persons born with telepathic and telekinetic abilities) to do his bidding.

Story

A young veterinarian intern named David Kellum discovers that he has mental abilities that allow him to read and control the minds of others. When he moves from his home in the country to a large city to continue his studies he discovers that he has a hard time controlling this ability due to the congestion of so many mind thought patterns.

He eventually stumbles upon a violent store robbery and mentally kills the gunman. Police Commander John Forrester finds the store's security tape and plans to secretly enlist David as an employee. He tells David that he knows what he is, a Scanner, and that there are others like him around the world. He asks David to help him track down criminals who have been able to evade arrest, to which David agrees.

After a successful capture of a man who put strychnine in various milk containers across the city, Forrester introduces David to another less in control Scanner named Peter Drak, who also works for him. Drak proves to be more aggressive and sinister in the use of his powers. Forrester teaches David a few mental techniques using Drak as a test subject. This causes Drak to consider Kellum an enemy but is injected with a drug call Eph2, a variant of the drug Ephemerol, which calms him before he could mentally harm David.

It is explained that the drug Ephemerol is what originally caused the creation of Scanners when it was given to expecting mothers to ease discomfort during pregnancy in the 1950s. A side effect of the drug caused the fetal babies to develop into Scanners. Forrester tells David that although Eph2 manages to calm a Scanner's mind, the drug is addictive and that he should never use it. Forrester encourages him to develop and control his mental abilities on his own, free of drug dependency.

David feels a new sense of accomplishment by helping law enforcement. This feeling changes though when Forrester assigns him to mentally control the mayor and have her announce Forrester as Chief of Police. Forrester reassures him that it is for the good of the city and that together they can stop crime and corruption. David, feeling guilty over his actions, disagrees and begins to question Forrester's agenda. He goes to the mayor and explains how he made her appoint Forrester as Chief of Police and apologizes. He plans with her a way to remove Forrester from office instead. David tells Forrester that he is quitting the team, to which Forrester responds by having Drak attack David and kill the mayor before she can get further plans underway. The mayor is successfully killed but David manages to escape and returns to his parents home in the country to hide.

While there he questions his parents about his abilities, to which they inform him that he was adopted. They explain that his birth parent's names were Cameron Vale and Kim Obrist. (from the first film Scanners) Vale and Obrist told them that their child was a Scanner and was in great danger. They then took David in as their own child and changed his last name to theirs, Kellum. David leaves to process the information. While he is gone, Drak and a team assembled by Forrester kill David's mother and leave David's father for dead. When David returns, his dying father tells him that he has an older sister named Julie Vale. He leaves his father with medical attendants and searches for his long-lost sister.

He finds Julie in a secluded cabin. She confirms that she is in fact his sister, and explains that their parents were killed by Forrester and his team for refusing to aid him. She also tells David that her former boyfriend Walter agreed to be a test subject for Forrester and was one of the first Scanners to use the drug Eph1, an early more unstable version of Eph2. After a few months Walter was kidnapped by Forrester and never seen again. Julie agrees to help David take down Forrester.

Together they go to Forrester's secret Scanner compound and mentally discover that Walter is still alive and among other Scanner test subjects addicted to Eph2. Julie and David kill and disable all outside guards but once inside Julie is hit with a tranquilizer dart. David tells her to rest while he goes in to destroy Forrester's research and free the invalid Scanners.

Drak attacks David once he reaches the test subject housing room and begins to mentally kill David. Drak is almost successful, but is stopped by the combined mental attack of the test subject Scanners who, along with David, manage to psychically drain Drak's life force. The process seems to help heal a lot of the physical damage the test subjects have from the drug use, as well as David's physical trauma caused by Drak's attack, but at the expense of Drak, who is drained to the point of skeletal demise.

Forrester, who was informed of the compound's attack by employees earlier, arrives on the scene at the same time television news reporters and camera crews do. He denies the existence of Scanners and ties to the mayor's death. David uses his powers to force Forrester to admit his involvement and motivation behind his actions before live cameras. After doing so, Forrester takes a gun from a nearby police officer and attempts to shoot David. David and Julie respond by physically deforming Forrester by using a combination of telepathy and telekinesis while cameras continue to record. David tells the reporters that Scanners mean no harm to the general population and only want to live their lives in peace. David then leaves with his girlfriend Alice who is among the reporters. Similarly, Julie reunites with Walter inside the compound and mentally tells her brother "Thank you."