British Medical Association Condemns Supreme Court Trans Ruling

 

Doctors in the British Medical Association have voted to condemn the recent UK Supreme Court ruling that redefined woman in the Equality Act 2010 to mean 'biological woman only' as both 'biologically nonsensical', and 'scientifically illiterate'.

During a conference of the resident doctors wing of the BMA, held on Saturday the 26th, the union passed a motion critical of the Supreme Court ruling. The group, which represents 50,000 young doctors across the United Kingdom, said that it 'condemns scientifically illiterate rulings from the Supreme Court, made without consulting relevant experts and stakeholders, that will cause real-world harm to the trans, non-binary and intersex communities in this country'.

They went on to say that the Supreme Court's decision 'has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender-diverse people'. The Supreme Court, despite ruling that legal sex under the Equality Act is determined by 'biological sex' have yet to clarify by what metric this is determined, and have yet to state clearly what aspect of biology makes someone a man or woman, or how determining this would work in real world circumstances, such as if chromosomal checks would be required in order to access single sex spaces.

A spokesperson at the BMA said that the official policy would be revealed in June at the Annual Representative Meeting (ARM), but that 'The BMA respects trans patients’ dignity, autonomy, and human rights and continues to believe that trans doctors, NHS workers and patients deserve dignity, safety, and equitable access to healthcare and healthcare facilities.'

British Medical Association members supporting queer rights, Pride London 2019.

They went on to say, 'This meeting condemns the Supreme Court ruling defining the term ‘woman’ with respect to the Equality Act as being based on ‘biological sex’, which they refer to as a person who was at birth of the female sex, as reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical. We recognise as doctors that sex and gender are complex and multifaceted aspects of the human condition and attempting to impose a rigid binary has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender diverse people.'

The BMA has previously spoken out for the rights of trans and gender diverse people in the UK, having publicly rejected the findings of the Cass Review last year. They went on to condemn the ban on puberty blockers for trans people under 18 (a treatment that is still available to cisgender children), and urged the government to end the ban, something that Labour have yet to do.

Despite the BMA being made up of medically trained professionals, a number of transphobic and bigoted groups and individuals in the UK have spoken out against them, claiming that they are incorrect in their beliefs. 

Noted anti-trans campaigner Helen Joyce has said 'It’s terrifying that a group of young doctors, all of whom have been through several years of advanced education and training in biology, have been indoctrinated by trans activism to such an extent that they claim categorisation by sex — male and female — is ‘reductive’ and has ‘no basis in science or medicine’.

'These junior doctors are an embarrassment to their profession. What next: young geographers claiming that the Earth is flat, or junior vets who think it’s bigoted to suggest that cats can’t identify as dogs? The consequences of these counterfactual beliefs were visible in the case of nurse Sandie Peggie, whose male colleague Dr Beth Upton used female changing rooms, claiming that he was ‘biologically female’ and that the term biological sex is a ‘nebulous dog whistle’.

Notable transphobe Helen Joyce.

'These junior doctors wildly misunderstand the role of the Supreme Court, which interprets the law rather than creating it or reflecting public opinion. They also seem to have missed the fact that no trans rights group such as Stonewall applied to intervene.'

On a personal note, I think that it's incredibly amusing that someone with no medical training or scientific knowledge would claim that an organisation of 50,000 doctors, who are simply agreeing with every recognised and credited medical organisation around, have been brainwashed into believing a lie, rather than considering that she herself might in fact be wrong. We've known that many of these transphobic 'activists' are in a sunk cost fallacy when it comes to their bigotry, but showing the entire world how deep you are into it by saying that you know better than the British Medical Association is one of the most pathetic and ridiculous things I've seen from a TERF in a long time. I would urge you to seek help Helen, but with how you seem to view doctors I suspect that would fall on deaf ears.

Despite some of the loudest voices on the Supreme Court ruling being those from transphobes, more sensible and decent people have spoken out, even if they've not been featured in the mainstream media. Helen Belcher, the chair of the campaign group TransActual said that officials have 'not thought through any of the vast and disturbing consequences raised by the Supreme Court ruling', and 'instead of bringing clarity, the Supreme Court has made a ruling which appears to contain a number of contradictions', something which seems to have bore out as true after the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released interim guidance calling to segregate trans people.

The Supreme Court decision has sparked outrage amongst the general public, with dozens of pro-trans protests having already taken place across Britain (and more to come) that has been attended by tens of thousands of trans people and trans allies. Multiple celebrities, politicians, and other public figures have also raised their voices in support of the trans community, raising both awareness and money for the cause. It would seem that whilst this decision has been praised by the media and anti-trans voices, who have falsely claimed that it 'brings clarity' to the issue this is a small, incorrect minority.

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Night Call - Film Review

 

Most people go their entire lives without brushing up against the world of organised crime, gangs, and extreme violence. It's a thing to be found in the movies or on the news, not suddenly injected into your everyday life. Night Call, the directorial debut of Belgian filmmaker Michiel Blanchart, takes this idea of a normal person finding their life thrown upside down by criminals and takes it to the extreme as Mady (Jonathan Feltre), a locksmith working night shifts, is dragged into a world of danger and murder by a call gone wrong.

The film begins by following Mady through a typical night, helping people get inside their homes when they've lost their keys, grabbing food from corner shops, and listening to classic music as he drives around the city. It's painted as a quiet, slow job that seems to suit him well. However, this all changes when he receives a call from Claire (Natacha Krief), a young woman who's locked her keys in her apartment and needs help. Arriving on the scene, Mady is ready to assist her, but when she can't pay him up front or show him her ID, both things she claims are locked inside, he goes against regulations and takes a chance on her, opening up the door. Claire goes inside to grab the cash, but realises she needs to head to the ATM downstairs, but invites him to wait in the apartment for her. Oh, and she's tossing out a bag of rubbish as she goes too.

Whilst waiting inside the apartment for Claire she calls his phone, telling him he has to leave quick before the real owner comes home and finds him there. However, it's too late for that, as Mady is attacked. During the fight Mady accidentally kills the attacker, and in a panic goes to call the police to turn himself in. But it's the news reports about BLM protests in the city, and footage of police brutality that makes him think perhaps a young Black man calling the cops to arrest him for murder isn't the best idea. Instead, he decides to try and clean up the crime scene and cover his tacks. But when more of the mans friends arrive on the scene Mady is captured and brought before a local gang leader, Yannick (Romain Duris), who tells Mady that Claire stole a load of money from him, and that he's got until morning to find her and get it back, or he dies in her place.

Mady is essentially an everyman, a regular person who is ill prepared for the situation he now finds himself in. And Feltre plays this role well. A lot of these kind of thrillers begin with an everyman type character, but often end up with them having more unrealised skills than some secret agents, able to fight of gangsters like they're a hired killer. Mady, on the other hand, rarely gets through situations with any kind of skill, and ends up either with things getting worse for him, or with him getting injured. He uses the skills he has, such as his locksmithing, but essentially makes up his plan as he goes along, just trying to stay alive until morning. Feltre injects a lot of humanity into Mady, with various looks of panic or sadness on his face the majority of times. It's moments of him failing to be the tough guy, literally breaking down in tears after hurting someone for information at one point, that makes him feel genuine and believable.

There are moments of violence in the film, and none of them are made to feel like action scenes where the protagonist is rising up over the challenge and being a hero. Instead, things feel brutal and shocking, and the violence, whilst not gratuitous, is harsh enough that it feels frightening, and you end up worrying for Mady. Blanchart handles these moments wonderfully, and manages to create a film that looks really well polished yet retains an almost gritty and horrible emotional undercurrent to it. The film is visually engaging, and pretty enough that you forget you're watching a debut movie. 

The films backdrop of a city being divided by BLM protests also works in the story's favour. Perhaps the smartest thing it does is that it allows the perfect excuse of why Mady, a man who would never normally try to get away with murder, would be ready to cut up and dispose of a body. The fear of a police force who he's seeing literally beating and killing people who look like him is not only perfectly understandable, but makes it so that you never question why he never goes for help at any point. It also plays into the ending in a wonderfully twisted and beautiful ending that feels both surprising, and completely expected.

Night Call was a surprisingly well crafted, and engaging movie that manages to do a lot over its relatively short runtime. It creates a character that you end up feeling a lot for, and creates a story that can be taken as a relatively straightforward crime thriller, or one that has deeper meaning and extra layers for those who are looking for it. I hope to see more from both Blanchart and Feltre in the future, as this film left me incredibly impressed.

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Equality and Human Rights Commission Tells Organisations to Segregate Trans People

 

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), an organisation that the trans community in Britain has been aware for a while now does not have the rights, protection, or safety of the trans community in mind at all, has released interim guidance following the Supreme Court ruling that explicitly calls for trans segregation. The guidance tells organisations that manage public spaces, as well as workplaces, that they will need to create segregated spaces for trans people when it comes to bathrooms, changing rooms, and washing facilities.

The decision of the EHRC seems to be based in the Supreme Courts ruling that same-sex spaces must align with 'biological sex'. It's worth noting, however, that biological sex, and the necessary conditions to be classed as either a man or woman, have not been provided beyond what is listed on a birth certificate. Despite ruling that biological sex is all that matters we have yet to be told if this is based on genotypic sex, or phenotypic sex characteristics, or what happens when people fall outside of these deciding factors. But as anyone with more than a basic understanding of biology knows, there is no singular necessary condition to define biological sex, that sex is bimodal with a spectrum and not binary, and that there is no basis in any science for this ruling. 

However, with the Supreme Court making a declaration that single-sex spaces must now be split by biology what does this mean for trans people? Well, before the EHRC guidance (which was published late Friday night), it was assumed that this would force trans women into male spaces, and trans men into women's spaces. There were caveats in the ruling that outlined that some people, such as trans men, could be barred from women's spaces as it was decided that despite not being men, they were too much men to be put with women. This seems to be where the EHRC has drawn inspiration for its guidance, as it has now issued instructions that call for the segregation of trans people completely.

The guidance states the following:

'trans women should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities, as this will mean that they are no longer single-sex facilities and must be open to all users of the opposite sex'

'in some circumstances the law also allows trans women not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities, and trans men not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities'

'however where facilities are available to both men and women, trans people should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use'

'where possible, mixed-sex toilet, washing or changing facilities in addition to sufficient single-sex facilities should be provided'

Perhaps it's my interpretation of what's being said here, and I'll admit that I'm not qualified in law, but it does seem that the EHRC is saying that trans people cannot use spaces that align with either their gender, or their 'biological sex', but that they should not be left without a space, therefor requiring the implementation of a separate space for them. A separate space where they can be segregated from cis people. If this is the case this comes as a truly horrifying piece of guidance, one that seeks to both overstep the bounds of the Supreme Court ruling, and to explicitly harm trans people across the UK. It is also worth noting that this guidance also applies to trans people with a Gender Recognition Certificate.

As this is interim guidance it is possible that this may go no further, that this guidance will be quietly ignored. However, if this were made statutory it would effect public spaces, schools, workplaces, clubs, sporting facilities, and other important places across the UK, and would become one of the biggest rollbacks on equality rights and protections that we've ever seen, and would turn Britain into a country that practices segregation and discrimination.

It is also worth considering how such guidance would be implemented. If made statutory it would require that any space offering single-sex facilities for men and women would then have to provide another space for trans people. Would every business and public space be expected to spend thousands to build these new facilities, would trans people simply be lumped into disabled spaces, or would places simply make all of their facilities gender neutral, thereby sidestepping the issue? If it's the latter option, which would likely be the cheapest and easiest of them, it would seem that the transphobic position of 'protecting women's spaces' would have failed by effectively removing many of them from existence.

The new interim guidance doesn't just talk about single-sex spaces, however, and goes on to talks about clubs and organisations that consist of twenty five members or more, and specifically uses queer spaces as an example. It instructs that lesbian only spaces should not admit trans women, and gay spaces should not admit trans men, effectively trying to police the queer community and telling us what is and isn't acceptable for the gay and lesbian community. 

Despite this guidance being less than a day old it has already been declared as a human rights disaster by multiple groups and individuals, particularly by members of the trans community and their allies, who have compared it to racial segregation, and apartheid. It would also seem that the EHRC has overstepped what was laid out in the Supreme Court ruling. But for those of us who are aware of the EHRC's past stance on trans people this comes as little surprise. The EHRC has been condemned by queer rights groups on multiple occassions for its overtly transphobic policies, and there have been multiple leaked documents that have revealed they have been working in opposition to the trans community. More on this can be found at TransActual.

Whatever becomes of this interim guidance, whether it's rolled back, or if it becomes statutory, it's clear that this is only the beginning. We're barely more than a week beyond the Supreme Court ruling and we've already seen an increase in anti-trans sentiment, the news media have praised the ruling and demonised the trans community, and more anti-trans guidance is being pushed. This is only the beginning of this fight, and things could get much, much worse from here; but there is also a fight back happening. There are pro-trans protests and demonstrations happening across the UK on an almost weekly basis. The trans community has mass support, and we are loved, even if it doesn't seem that way.

It's easy to be disheartened by this news, and everything else that's been happening. I've been going from feeling absolutely without hope to being ready to fight this every day. There are times when I think that it's pointless, and that there's no way to win, but then I see the support we have, I see the action being taken to protect us and our rights and it restores my hope. Don't give up. Keep fighting. This is going to be a long, dark road, but we will make it through.

Update: Robin Moira White, Discrimination Barrister, and first barrister to transition in the UK, has claimed that the new guidance from the EHRC appears to 'be in potential breach of Articles 3,8, and 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, and as such the guidance should not be followed.

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UK Supreme Court Ruling and Fighting Back As a Trans Person

 

Last week the UK Supreme Court ruled that sex as listed in the Equality Act 2010 will now be defined as a person's observed sex at birth. This news was met by celebration by 'Gender Criticals' or 'TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists)', or more accurately, bigots who hate trans people, whilst the trans community, their allies, and anyone with an ounce of common sense saw this as a terrible decision that would have long reaching effects that would harm a wide range of people.

As a trans person living in the UK I was shocked by this news, but not hugely surprised. Over the last decade I'd watched as trans people went from largely ignored, allowed to get on with our lives, to being the flavour of the month minority group who were celebrated for being 'brave', to having become so demonised that small but influential groups of bigots have been campaigning non-stop to have us made into third class citizens. This ruling was something that should shock and sicken, and has for a lot of people, but for those of us who have been living this everyday it felt like the natural next step in this campaign to eradicate trans people.

That language might sound inflammatory to some, and I'm sure that people are already scoffing at the word and accusing me of 'overreacting', but that's what's been happening. People want the trans population gone. We're something that they hate, something that they're frightened of, something that they take disgust in, and these people have dedicated their lives to erasing us. For now it's about doing it legally, removing rights and protections, but I'm sure if allowed to continue this way it will progress to removing the ability to transition at all, with the end goal being trans people existing outside of the closet being impossible. 

When I first started writing on this blog it was an outlet for me, with me having only just come out of the closet to myself. I'd been struggling with severe depression for most of my life, and I didn't know why I felt that way until one day something just clicked inside me and I realised I was trans. I came out to a small circle of people, and I was awaiting the chance to medically transition, and I felt like I was stuck in a limbo with no outlet; so I started writing. I wrote about whatever I wanted, with no real direction in mind. It could be writing about a film I'd watched, about being trans, or about personal experiences and hopes for the future.

Over the years I kept writing, and I wrote more about being trans and about things happening to trans people around the world. I was asked to contribute to a number of trans focused outlets, and I gained some attention online. Sadly, being openly, vocally trans online can draw negative attention, and through the combination of threats and abuse, constant negative stories, and my own personal issues at the time, I burned out. I got to the point where I had to step back from writing about trans issues, and I focused on other work. I ended up working with an entertainment outlet, where my book reviews took over much of my writing time, and I even ended up on the editorial team. Trans issues never left my life, never became something that I stopped caring about, but life kind of shifted them to being something I didn't write about myself anymore.

I've always felt a little guilty about that. I know I was never anyone important, that I never mattered, I wasn't some big figure in the trans community, or even a small one. I was just one voice that occasionally spoke up that may have been doing something good. But despite that, I felt like I'd let the trans community down and that by writing about frivolous things like comics and movies over the struggles of my community I'd done something that I should feel ashamed about, and I was always a little bit afraid of trying to go back to doing something. I tried to do a little, such as writing about the lives lost in the community on Trans Day of Remembrance, but it felt like it wasn't enough, and I felt guilty for even trying.

But then last week rolled around, and trans people in the UK lost their rights. The bigots were able to sway the court to their side. Trans people were excluded from proceedings, lies were allowed to be told about us, and we lost rights and protections. Overnight we became third class citizens, a large part of our existence was made illegal, and our futures became dark and uncertain. That, coupled with images and videos of bigots drinking champagne, cheering and celebrating outside of court, and smoking their victory cigars as they lauded the this ruling over us as a victory, broke something inside me.

I hadn't felt this depressed in almost a decade. Things felt hopeless. I didn't know if I was going to be safe outside my home anymore. I was suddenly back to being that newly out trans woman, afraid for her future, crying herself to sleep, drinking to numb the pain, and wondering if life was worth living anymore. And this is as someone with a support network around her, someone with safety, who even if things become worse will likely be okay. I couldn't imagine how hard last week was for those who didn't have that, for those newly out, for those without family and friends, for those without a secure home. 

Since the ruling came out I've gone from feeling utterly broken to feeling enraged. I look at the world and I feel so much anger that we've gotten to this point. I hate that the people who hate us have such elevated voices, that they have so much power to influence the world for the worse. I hate that they've twisted the narrative so much that trans existence is painted as a threat, that we've been made into the monsters that prey upon 'real' women and girls, and that women's rights have been so harmed in the fight against us. And I hate that they make me feel so much hate. I want to hope for a better tomorrow, for a world where trans people need not be afraid for their futures, where we're allowed to just exist and be ourselves without being made into monsters or victims. But his isn't a time for hope alone, hope without action won't do anything.

I'm just one voice, a voice who doesn't really matter, but I'm going to be using my voice again. I let myself and my community down for a long time by doing nothing. I'm one voice, and one voice alone can be forgotten, and can go unheard. But if all of us start shouting then those lone voices become something more, and we can start making ourselves heard. I will do what I can, even if all I can do is start talking about trans people and our fight more. I wish I could do more, I wish I wasn't so sick all the time, that I could take to the streets as part of the protests, that I could take more action, but I will use the platform I have, as little as it is.

I want to say that I'm sorry though. I've been content to do little for so long, to allow others to take up the cause, to shy away and keep myself safe and focus on my self. Yes, I've been sick, and dealing with my disability and the impact it's had on my life has taken up a lot of my time, but I can't use that as an excuse, because those coming for us won't give me a free pass because of that. I should never have stopped talking about trans people. I should never have let my voice falter. So, I'm sorry. But that stops now. This is a fight, and I will do whatever I can to help in that fight. 

I don't know what that means for my blog, how it's going to change things for those who've been reading it for all this time with it becoming a mixture of entertainment articles and trans focused writing. I don't know if it will lose me readers and subscribers, if it might even lose me relationships with the people I work with, if it will cost me the opportunity to get review copies of things and it effectively ends my ability to do what I've been doing for years now; because standing up for the trans community and drawing attention to our fight is more important than those things. 

I don't know how long this road is going to be, or how hard this fight will end up, but it's not a fight I can just ignore. I will never stop being me, I will never stop existing as long as I'm alive, no matter how much bigots try to make this world unsafe for trans people. Trans lives matter. We exist, and we will keep fighting.

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Black Cab - Film Review

 

Sometimes all you need to make a good story work is a confined space and a couple of really good actors. Black Cab, the latest Shudder film to get a Blu-ray release so that those who don't subscribe to the streaming service can get a chance to watch it, tries this by putting its two leads into a London black cab and ramping the tension up; however, thanks to a fairly lacklustre script there's little here to keep you engaged other than Nick Frost's charm (please note, this review was written before Nick Frost was announced to be in the new Harry Potter television series).

Black Cab follows Anne (Synnøve Karlsen), a young woman dealing with the stress of her unstable relationship with a boyfriend, Patrick (Luke Norris), who looks to be an abusive womaniser. Anne is dealing with the uncertainty of their relationship, her pregnancy, and the ghost that's following her and giving her strange nightmares about a black cab. The early scenes have an almost Where's Wally? thing going on with the ghostly figure as you catch small glimpses of her in reflective surfaces, or see fading handprints she leaves behind on things. 

After an awkward dinner with some friends, where Patrick tells shitty stories, gets very drunk, and announces that he and Anne are engaged (seemingly something even Anne didn't know), the two of them jump in the back of a black cab driven by Ian (Nick Frost). At first Ian seems to be a decent guy, even offering to throw Patrick out for Anne, sensing the tension between the two of them. Bombarding them with stories, a running commentary, and even joining in with songs on the radio, Ian comes across as the embodiment of the overly talkative London cabbie. It's when he mentions having recently picked up Anne from the hospital maternity ward that things begin to take a turn, having just accidentally revealed to Patrick that Anne is pregnant.

However, this awkward moment is quickly overshadowed when Ian, who's pretending to need to get a map from the back of the cab, attacks the young couple with a stun gun, knocking Patrick unconscious. With Anne and Patrick zip-tied in the back of the cab, Ian starts a journey to a distant stretch of supposedly haunted road, where he needs Anne and her unborn baby to make a deal.

Black Cab doesn't have a bad premise, on paper at least. Being a young pregnant woman trapped in the rear of a vehicle driven by a madman with a weapon and some strange agenda for you is a pretty frightening concept, one that leans into very real fears that a lot of women have to deal with on an almost everyday basis. However, the film never really does much beyond this initial concept. The movie toys with the supernatural throughout, yet doesn't really commit to it until the final act, and by then it's been used so sparsely that it almost feels a bit ridiculous when the film makes one of its main characters a ghost.

It also doesn't help that two thirds of its main cast, Anne and Patrick, feel very underdeveloped. Patrick spends much of the movie unconscious, and as such you either forget he's there, or think of him as little more than an annoying prick boyfriend. This is fine in a way, as the film isn't really about him, and despite being there for much of the film he's little more than a supporting character. But even then, I'm finding it hard to describe his character in any great detail. He's fairly shallow, with a surface level character trait that never gets expanded upon. If he was the only one it might not stand out so much, but the fact that Anne, our lead character, is similar in a lot of ways, makes it feel less of an importance thing, and more that the writing is just pretty weak.

Anne's character can be summed up very simply as 'frightened victim', with little else to her. Whether that's her being scared around her partner, or terrified that Ian is going to kill her, she spends much of the film being scared. You might be asking what's wrong with that, she is a female lead in a horror film after all, that's what most of them do, but when compared to other final girls it's shockingly clear that Anne has no character. Compared to Sarah Connor, Laurie Strode, Sidney Prescott, or Ellen Ripley, all of whom have strong characters and interesting arcs in their first films, Anne falls pretty flat. I feel bad in saying that, as Karlsen does a decent job throughout, and comes across as a very charming person, but it's more of a lack of material she has to work with rather than any lack of acting ability.

The only character who seems to have any real presence is Ian, and I can't help but feel that much of this comes down to Nick Frost over the actual script. Frost is able to make himself very charming when needed, and he injects a lot of humour into various moments in the film too, simply from how he puts certain inflection into lines that could have been delivered much more normally. It's not hard to watch half of his scenes and think that another actor would be delivering a much less interesting performance. He's able to make you like Ian very quickly, and there are several moments even after he's revealed he's the villain of the piece where you kind of still like him. The times where the charm drops and he turns sinister are much more impactful because of this too, and it's often quite shocking when the jovial cab driver suddenly screams at Anne, threatening to harm her. In many ways Nick Frost carries this film, and if it wasn't for his performance it would be hard to enjoy much of the movie.

Black Cab is a fairly short film, yet feels overly long when you're watching it. This comes down to the weird pacing that it has, and the fact that not a huge amount happens for the first hour. Little time is given over to character development, and plot seems to just circle around for a while. Thinking back on the movie it feels like a concept for a short film that was stretched out into a feature length piece, one that didn't have enough material to make that change feel worthwhile or substantial. 

It's not just the film that feels lacking, sadly, as the Blu-ray release comes with nothing but a behind the scenes photo gallery as it's extra features. The lack of anything like trailers, interviews, behind the scenes making of pieces, or commentaries, makes the physical release feel kind of cheap, and as if no real care was put into making it. For those who don't have Shudder and see a Black Cab sitting on shop shelves and find their interest piqued by a Nick Frost horror film (as mine was initially), perhaps wait until the film is in the bargain bin, as the way it is at the moment it feels like the full asking price is much steeper than it should be.

Black Cab is available no on both DVD and Blu-ray.

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Scanners - Blu-Ray Review

 

Scanners is one of those movies where even if you've never seen it you've heard about it, and likely you've seen a clip of it. We all know which clip, that very specific scene that's been used to sell people on the film since even before it came out; the head explosion. Perhaps one of the most famous shock moments in film history, it made Scanners into a film that is being remembered decades later, and helped to secure it's writer and director David Cronenberg as a creative with a unique vision. Like a lot of people, I'd seen that particular scene in Scanners, and it was about all I knew about the movie, and it's not been until Second Sight's new Blu-ray release that I've finally had a chance to watch this classic piece of cinema.

Scanners tells the story about a special group of people, people with psychic powers who have been labelled as Scanners. The Scanners are little known to the public, and it seems that the private military corporation ConSec are the only ones really aware of their existence; though ConSec are slowly starting to reveal the existence of Scanners as a product that people can purchase in order to increase security. However, there's also an underground resistance of Scanners, led by the cruel Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), who want to recruit all of the Scanners to their side to revolt against humanity.

In order to combat Revok, Doctor Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan), the man who discovered the existence of Scanners and developed a drug that allows them to block out their powers, finds and recruits Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), a homeless Scanner whose powers have forced him to live on the fringes of society. With help from Ruth, Vale learns to control his abilities, and agrees to help find and stop Revok, who's killing any Scanner who refuses to side with him. 

Scanners is a fairly simple plot, and is more of a mixture of corporate espionage thriller and science fiction than horror; though it's hard to deny that the film employs plenty of body horror in its depiction of the Scanners destructive abilities. Having only known about the infamous head explosion scene I was surprised to find that this moment happened early in the movie, within the first ten minutes, but that it was not indicative of the movie as a whole. Scanners is instead a relatively slow burn of a film, one that seems more focused on how Vale learns to deal with the new reality that he's not crazy, and that he is one of a select group with unique powers. 

The movie is fairly bleak at times, and the cold Canadian winter in which it was filmed in seems to bleed into the tone of the film at times, and you can feel the cold encroaching into the fabric of the film itself. It blends well with the general tone of people being forced to live on the fringes of the rest of humanity, people who have been haunted by their abilities, people who are lonely and hurt, people who are angry at the world around them. Whilst the setting of the early 80's feels very much of it's time the themes of the film still feel very relevant, especially in a time where we as a society still have marginalised groups who are targeted simply for being 'different' from the majority. I think that Scanners as a film, and the Scanners of the film, will be something that people from marginalised groups will connect with even now; even if that was not an original intent of Cronenberg. 

Whilst much of the films content was something of a surprise for me, being a much slower and more introspective kind of story than I was expecting, when the time comes for things to get gory it very much feels like a Cronenberg film. There are some moments in the story when the Scanners use their powers to harm and kill others, and it would have been easy to make these moments feel subtle, such as having someone collapse with some blood running from their nose and saying that a Scanner gave them an aneurism or something like that. However, Cronenberg makes the Scanners feel incredibly visceral and destructive when using their powers, and rather than being able to surgically strike on their opponents they act more like a sledgehammer.

The film's conclusion illustrates this perfectly, and the extra features on the disc go into this in greater detail, revealing both how the gory effects were created, but also that much of what is seen in these final moments were additional shots and reshoots as the first ending was considered a little too tame. The effects used in this scene are shocking, due in part to the film having gone so long without something so brutal, and both Scanners who are locked in psychic battle have bursting veins, spouting blood, exploding eyes, and sudden combustion to contend with. It's this final, brutal moment that reminds the viewer that this is a Cronenberg film, and will leave you feeling both shocked and uncomfortable. 

The new release features a 4K restoration of the movie, and it's looks fantastic. Having seen clips of the head explosion over the years I was used to seeing Scanners as grainy, almost grimy in its visual presentation, but Second Sight have outdone themselves in how good the film looks. Everything is crisp and sharp, the colours are bold, and effects work is even more impressive now that it can be seen in even greater detail. I love seeing these older films, which have mostly been shown in lower quality over the decades, given new life on Blu-ray where it feels like seeing it as it was truly intended to be seen, and those familiar with the movie will surely love being able to pour over every tiny detail like never before.

The new release comes with a pair of audio commentaries, one of which is brand new to this edition. The newest of these features Caelum Vatnsdal, author of They Came From Within: A history of Canadian Cinema, and is able to use his expertise to talk about the production of the movie and the impact that it would go on to have. The second commentary has film studies professor William Beard, who does a similar job to Vatnsdal, offering stories and information about the film. Whilst some people prefer to have no commentary if the people who worked on the movies aren't available to take part Second Sight seem to go out of their way to find well informed people who can at least offer decent insight into the films they're talking about, and the commentaries on offer here are educational, and for folks who know little about Scanners but want to learn more they offer a decent way of doing so. 

Alongside the commentaries there are also a number of interviews with cast and crew, including Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, Lawrence Dane, Mark Irwin, and Howard Shore. The interviews vary in length and quality depending on what it is you're hoping to get out of them. Lack, for example, comes across as very different to Ironside, despite them being the two leads in the film. Ironside goes into detail on what it was like to film, telling some amusing stories and coming across as incredibly charming, whilst Lack, who is more an artist than an actor, feels a little removed from Scanners, and comes across as less happy about his involvement in the film. There's about two and a half hours of interviews in total, spread across several cast and crew, so even if one isn't to your liking there will be some that entertain.

The new release was a great introduction to Scanners for me, and for fans of the film it certainly seems to be a great new release. The picture and sound quality are great, and make the film feel fresh and new. The extra features aren't incredibly varied, but it seems like Second Sight went out of their way to include what they could, and it means there's plenty to watch even after the film is done. Whether you're a long time fan of the film, or a newcomer like myself who's been hooked ever since seeing that head pop, this makes for a great watch.

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