Some franchises are easy to overlook in this day and age. Twenty years ago, it was hard not to be aware of exactly how many films were in any given series. After all, your eyes were forced to run across their titles as you perused the shelves at your local rental and retail outlets. Depending on the franchise, reactions would obviously range between “Whoa! There’s more of these!” and “Ugh, they made another one?!?” I sometimes find myself wondering where Scanners lands on that spectrum for most.
I can recall the box art for many a long-running series in my mind, whether or not I liked (or even watched) them. Scanners was always one that came to mind. While I didn’t finally see the original until I was in high school (and its follow-ups until much later), I was well aware of the fact that a handful of entries existed. So just how many are there? Five and, believe it or not, most of them are pretty good!