Review of Videodrome (1983) by Ben L — 27 Aug 2017

Setting expectations low can sometimes make the most unpleasant experiences tolerable. I had every reason to think that Videodrome would be a painful movie to watch, considering it has dark and twisted themes with some body horror added in for good measure. Surprisingly, I found some things that were quite fascinating in the film. The world starts out feeling very much like the real 1980s, but pushed to an extreme. It?s a dark and dismal world where TV has become a necessity that impacts every aspect of people?s lives, and there is no limit to what they will show on it. James Woods plays the protagonist who is a programming director for the sleaziest of cable channels, and on his journey to find the next extreme thing he stumbles upon Videodrome (a torture-themed show) which changes his life forever.

The entire film is like a mystery that challenges you to figure out what is real and what is hallucination. I would certainly like it more if they ever made it clear one way or another, but this isn?t that type of movie, and I at least liked the illusion of a thought-provoking puzzle. Sometimes ambiguity can work for me in film, but this one left things a little too opaque. I wanted to understand what was actually happening when Woods was seeing these insane things. Perhaps it all was happening, because they seemed to be playing with a heightened form of reality after the first Videodrome clip is shown. It became particularly confusing when scenes would feel grounded and real, and then suddenly a weird pulsing videotape would appear, and a slot would open in a man?s stomach. As for that stuff, I don?t particularly like watching the gross-out horrific images that Rick Baker brings to life, but I can?t deny they are perfectly crafted and better than all the CGI modern studios could muster.

I appreciate the way Videodrome kept me on the edge of my seat. It?s a tense film, made even moreso by that spooky Howard Shore score. However, as I stated, my opinion comes across as more positive because I expected to hate it so much. Truth be told, there?s a ton of things I didn?t like about the film. I hate horror, and this film was powerfully horrific in some ways. The images stuck in my mind, and made it hard to sleep after watching. The perverse sadomasochistic scene was a good time for me to look away and play a game on my phone, because from the get-go that made my skin crawl. The excessive blood and gore is something I can tolerate a bit more now, but when it feels unnecessary I could do without it. Finally, it feels like Videodrome is trying to make a point about our TV-obsessed culture, but it?s so off-the-wall and odd in the way it delivers its message, I failed to comprehend it. Therefore, while I didn?t despise my experience watching Videodrome, I also didn?t enjoy it and won?t plan on a rewatch.