Review of Videodrome (1983) by Danny K — 05 Sep 2012

After David Cronenberg had a big international hit with Scanners (1981), Hollywood came calling, and he answered to Universal Pictures with this thought-provoking, gory but highly original sci-fi/horror.

Cronenberg had his finger on the pulse of the media concerns of videos at the time, and pornography appearing on TV, with this, he asks "What if the censors are right??" It's terrifying and brilliant, and it has some brilliant effects.

Max Renn (James Woods) runs a seedy cable TV station in Toronto called CIVIC-TV, that shows softcore pornography and gratuitous violence. Renn is bored with the current line up they have, but technical assistant Harlan (Peter Dvorsky), comes across a grainy TV show called Videodrome, which women are raped, tortured and killed.

Renn is excited by the show, and see's it as the future of TV, and he becomes obsessed by it, as does his new girlfriend Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry). Max investigates further, and learns that it's not faked, leading him to media analyst Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley) and glasses maker Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson), meanwhile Max is having severe hallucinations, some real, some not.

This film is an indictment on people's TV viewing habits, and about how far some people will go to get their kicks. Cronenberg gets the best out of the cast and crew, plus the effects Rick Baker come up with top what he did in American Werewolf, turning television sets and Betamax cassettes into living organisms.

It's provocative and hypnotic, and it's also Cronenberg's masterpiece, it's as relevant back in the 80's as it is now.