Review of Videodrome (1983) by Chris F — 07 May 2009

David Cronenberg was one of the few seventies directors to do consistently great work throughout the eighties, including Scanners (1981), The Dead Zone (1983), The Fly (1986) and Dead Ringers (1988). Videodrome was Cronenberg?s last Canadian film before heading to Hollywood, and it stars James Woods (at his sleazy best) as Max Renn, a cable television operator who becomes obsessed with a broadcast that is comprised entirely of torture and murder.

It?s a cold, brutal, hallucination of a film in which Cronenberg takes Marshall McLuhan?s view of media as an extension of man to its logical, horrific conclusion ? paving the way for the cyberpunk movement that would blossom in the following decade.