Cult Classics: Scanners

Psychic powers and corporate dystopia in a Cronenberg body-horror classic

Arc Cinema

8:00PM

$19.50 Full / $16.50 Concession (+$1.50 booking fee)

31 July, 2026

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Cult Classics: Scanners 31 July, 2026

1981 | R18+ | DCP | CAN | D: David Cronenberg

The NFSA presents a series of irreverent, Friday night filmic feasts, curated and hosted by drag artist and culture warrior Venus Mantrap.   

Cult Classics with Venus Mantrap dives into the world of sharp, edgy films and beloved fan favourites. Each event features a pre-screening live performance by Venus in our beautiful art deco Arc Cinema.

Our Cult Classics screenings are often interactive and always full of laughs and surprises. Leave your serious side at home and enjoy a movie night with a twist. And probably a shimmy.

Scanners are people with dangerously powerful telepathic powers who have been weaponised by a sinister corporation. When one scanner (Michael Ironside) begins to build an underground army, another scanner, reclusive outsider Cameron (Stephen Lack), is recruited to stop him.

Classic body horror from David Cronenberg presents an elegantly polished series of gory special effects.

‘Scanners offers at least one literally eye-popping moment and another that can only be called mind-blowing.’ – Variety

Includes pre-screening introduction and live performance by Venus Mantrap.

Coming up in Cult Classics: Body Double, Strange Days, The Lair of the White Worm, Death Becomes Her, and Showgirls.

Arc Cinema

We are situated in the heart of Canberra on McCoy Circuit, Acton, between the shores of Lake Burley Griffin and the grounds of the Australian National University. Just a 10-minute walk from the city and state bus interchanges.

1 McCoy Circuit, Acton, ACT 2601

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