Videodrome

Plot synopsis:
Max Renn (James Woods) is the president of CIVIC-TV (Channel 83, Cable 12), a sleazy Toronto UHF television station specializing in sensationalistic programming. Displeased with his station's current lineup (which mostly consists of softcore pornography), Renn is on a seemingly endless quest for something that isn't so "soft" and will "break through" to a new audience.One morning Renn is summoned to the clandestine office of Harlan (Peter Dvorsky), who operates CIVIC-TV's pirate satellite dish, a technologically advanced satellite run on an amalgamation of high-tech components that allows it to pirate broadcasts from as far away as Asia. Harlan shows Renn "Videodrome," a plotless television show apparently being broadcast out of Malaysia, which depicts the brutal torture and eventual murder of anonymous victims in a bizarre, reddish-orange chamber. Believing this to be the future of television-- snuff TV-- Renn orders Harlan to begin pirating the show.Appearing on a Rena King's TV talk show, Renn defends his station's programming choices to Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry), a sadomasochistic psychiatrist, and Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), a pop-culture analyst and philosopher who will only appear on television if his image is broadcast into the studio, onto a television, from a remote location. O'Blivion hijacks the interview and delivers a speech prophesying a future in which television supplants real life.Renn dates Nikki, who is sexually aroused when Renn shows her an episode of Videodrome and coaxes him into having sex with her while they watch it. Renn goes once again to Harlan's office, where Harlan informs him that the signal delay which caused it to appear to be coming from Malaysia was a ploy by the broadcaster. In fact, Videodrome is being broadcast out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Renn tells Nikki of his discovery and she excitedly goes to Pittsburgh to try and audition for the show.When Nikki fails to return to Toronto, Renn contacts Masha Borowski (Lynne Gorman), a softcore feminist pornographer with long-standing ties to the porn community, and asks her to help him find out the truth about Videodrome. Through Masha, Renn learns that Videodrome is the public "face" of a political ideology movement with unspecified but apparently violent goals. Masha further informs Renn that Brian O'Blivion knows about Videodrome.Max Renn tracks down O'Blivion's office to The Cathode Ray Mission, a mission where homeless individuals are provided food, shelter, and clothing, and encouraged to engage in marathon sessions of television viewing. Renn discovers that the mission is run by O'Blivion's daughter, Bianca (Sonja Smits), with the goal of helping to bring about her father's vision of a world in which television replaces every aspect of everyday life.Later, Renn views a videotape in which O'Blivion informs him that "the Videodrome" is a socio-political battleground in which a war is being fought for control of the minds of the people of North America. Shortly thereafter, Renn begins experiencing disturbing hallucinations in which his torso transforms into a bloody, vaginal VCR. In one hallucination, Renn finds himself strapped to a chair while a hooded figure is strangling him. The hood comes off to reveal Nikki. Her lips fill the screen of a TV set where she says: "Come to me." Renn leans in close. Pulling and undulating, the screen envelopes his face.At the mission, Bianca tells Renn that these are side-effects from having viewed Videodrome, which is in fact the carrier of a malicious broadcast signal that causes the viewer to develop a malignant brain tumor. Brian O'Blivion helped to create it as part of his vision for the future, but when he found out that it was to be used for malicious purposes, he attempted to stop his partners; they used his own invention to kill him. In the year before his death, O'Blivion recorded tens of thousands of videos, which now form the basis of his television appearances. Bianca sends Renn away with an armful of videotapes to watch. As he watches one tape, holding a pistol, he scratches his stomach in which the vagina-like slit opens, into which his gun disappears. On the tape, O'Blivion says: "There is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there?"Renn is contacted by Videodrome's producer, the Spectacular Optical Corporation, an eyeglasses company that acts as a front for a NATO weapons manufacturer. The head of Spectacular Optical, Barry Convex, (Leslie Carlson) has been working with Harlan to get Renn to broadcast Videodrome as part of a crypto-government conspiracy to morally and ideologically "purge" North America, giving fatal brain tumors to "lowlifes" fixated on extreme sex and violence. Convex produces a high-tech helmet to record Renn's hallucinations, to find out why he seems to be functioning when none of the other "test subjects" has returned to "normality." Convex places the helmet on Renn's head and leaves the room.Renn hallucinates himself in Videodrome with Nicki. As he whips an organic TV set, Nicki's image transforms into Masha. Renn wakes up in his own bed with Masha dead at his side. Renn calls Harlan to come over with his camera, but when he arrives, he sees nothing in the bed to photograph. Totally wired, Renn says they must watch last nights Videodrome broadcast as he is in it. At the lab, Harlan reveals that there never was a broadcast, only pre-recorded tapes which he never watched. Just then Convex enters. He says that they chose Channel 83 for the first transmission of the Videodrome signal because of it's sleazy content and audience. "Why would anybody watch a show like Videodrome?" says Convex.Under Convex's influence he produces a pulsating VHS tape and Renn's stomach-slit opens to receive his program. Convex orders Renn to: "kill your partners and give me Channel 83." Renn pulls his gun back from the slit and black metal tendrils extend into his hand.Renn goes back to Channel 83 station and shoots both Moses and Raphael in the Channel 8 boardroom, his gun/hand now a single organic fusion. His next program is to kill Bianca O'Blivion. He breaks into the Mission, but hesitates when Bianca plays him Nikki's death scene on Videodrome. She was killed on the show along with all those other people by Spectacular Optical Corporation. A flesh-gun emerges from the TV set and shoots him - a violent deprogramming. Bianca inserts her own tape into Renn's slit. With that she re-programs him to go after the ones responsible for creating Videodrome. She tells him he is: "the video word made flesh. Death to Videodrome. Long live the new flesh."Back at the Channel 83 studios, Harlan congratulates Renn on his good work, and changes his program. When Harlen withdraws his hand from Renn's slit to retrieve the videotape program, he is horrified to see his hand become a ticking bloody organic grenade. The explosion kills Harlan and blows a hole in the wall of the studio which Renn calmly steps out.At the Spectacular Optical trade show at the Toronto Convention Centre, Convex introduces the new spring collection, the Medici range. Renn approaches the stage and shoots Convex with his gun/hand, who falls dead and his entire body erupts in a gory and sickening mass of tumors as people scream and panic. Renn waves his hand/gun to the assembly declaring: "Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!"Afterwards, Renn takes refuge on a derelict boat in an abandoned harbor, where Nicki appears to him on another television that appears. As Renn sits on a filthy mattress, Nicki tells him he has weakened Videodrome, but that in order to completely defeat it, he has to "leave the old flesh." The television then shows an image of Renn shooting himself in the head with his gun/hand, which causes the TV set to explode, splattering the deck of the ship with bloody, human intestines and multicolored goo. Imitating what he has just seen on TV, Renn says his final words, "Long live the New Flesh", and then he pulls the trigger.

Tags: dark, suspenseful, gothic, murder, mystery, cult, alternate reality, violence, flashback, insanity, psychedelic, satire, philosophical, brainwashing, revenge, sci-fi

Review:
This surreal, mind-bending thriller is quite possibly the strangest and most provocative film that cult director David Cronenberg has ever made.Manager of a cable television station stumbles across a mysterious, sadistic program that begins to induce horrific visions for our hero.
Most of Cronenberg's films have some kind of warning to society and with Videodrome the warning is about the power and influence of the media upon the human mind.The story is both engaging and haunting.
inside his stomach.The cast is good, James Woods does a dynamic performance, as does attractive supporting stars Sonja Smitts and Deborah Harry.Videodrome is a film quite unlike any other.
James Woods plays a scuzzy, low-life TV producer  (the kind of character he plays exceptionally well and that you've come to love from prior performances in films like 'Salvador') who gets hooked on watching a pirate snuff film channel, but soon he discovers everything is not as it seems to be and that the transmission wasn't broadcast at all but actually a tape which brainwashes him into acts of self mutilation on his body, soon he is finds that he can hardly even control himself or his body.A great first half with terrific performances from the three leads, steps up a gear or two in the second half.
You're not going to let a one-sentence plot description and, if you own the Criterion Collection DVD, the three essays included deter you from watching it, are you?You're also not going to let scenes of grisly torture, unspeakable violence, murder, "flesh guns," human VCRs, exploding cancer-deaths (poor Leslie Carlson as Barry Convex), pulsating video cassettes, Deborah Harry in S&M and morphing televisions turn you away, are you?
What's more, you're not going to let Woods's effectively "wooden" performance here (his sticking his face into a "living" television) turn you away either?I won't even try to pretend I understood what was going through Cronenberg's mind when he wrote and directed this picture.
But keep in mind this film was made in '83, years before the mind-blowing reality-morphing of "The Matrix" (1999).There's a little more that I think I can get away with in describing the plot, and Renn eventually traces the signal to Pittsburgh, and is introduced to the station's enigmatic programmer Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley) and his daughter Bianca (Sonja Smits).
It's no secret Cronenberg loves torturing his protagonists and here, the "new flesh" wants to live long and Woods has the nice warm body perfect for it - he becomes a literal media assassin with a vaginal slit in his stomach that doubles as a programmable VCR and also has a handgun fused to his wrist - he's a virtual slave to Videodrome.Lastly, the eerie, driving score by Howard Shore swells up during the film's most intense and surreal moments, the most lovely being Woods's lovemaking with his television.
Deborah Harry (of Blondie fame) gives a great non-blonde performance as an "emotionally energized" radio show host, and James Woods is a scummy business-minded owner of a seedy TV station.Like "Brazil" or "Twelve Monkeys" this movie will make you think, and even though there isn't really much violence or horror, your mind will fill in the parts that aren't there.
(Probably even before that going by descriptions of early efforts like 'Crimes Of The Future' which I unfortunately haven't had the opportunity to see.) But Cronenberg, unlike say the Wachowski brothers, isn't just repackaging science fiction ideas for a new generation of movie goers, he is a genuine original.'Videodrome' still knocks me out every time I watch it.
However as his fascination becomes an obsession his hallucinations start to get more real and more extreme.Although it is pretty hard to get inside and to understand (much of it does not make a lot of sense), Videodrome is probably more relevant today than it was in the early eighties if only because the issue of the effects of sexual and/or violent "entertainment" continues to be debated and explored.
There is lots of messaging about bad media addictions and a polluted TV culture, But this Videodrome pirate channel is more than just a new low of non-stop sex and violence, it reprograms the TV addict's body to do things like grow a VCR tape slot in the stomach and have wild violent hallucinations.
Here is where it gets the Cronenberg gore special efx touch which eventually undoes the movie.In one scene, after the changed Max fights back against the Videodrome people with the help of the professor's daughter, his old technical wizard attempts to reprogram him by sticking a new pulsating lifelike VCR tape in his stomach slot.
Then Max goes on some more gory revenge scenes and it ends up really dumb in the end.So Cronenberg takes a good concept and theme and essentially does little better than what his fictitious cable channel did, feed us some gore and R light sex under the guise of exploring the dark side of the media.
Some viewers might be dazzled if it's their first time ever seeing a movie that isn't 100% Hollywood clichés, but if you want a memorable story, good characters, or a powerful experience, Videodrome will be a waste of time.
The film heads in a surreal, otherworldly direction, then has a clichéd third act where James Woods just has to kill some paper-thin bad guy who wants to rule the world.James Woods as Max Renn does an OK job in the lead role, but his character never develops; calling him 2-dimensional feels like an overstatement.
The Television Screen Is the Retina of the Mind's Eye. The president of the Civic TV - channel 83, Max Renn (James Wood), is always looking for new cheap and erotic movies for his cable television.
When his employee Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) decodes a pirate video broadcast showing torture, murder and mutilation called Videodrome, Max becomes obsessed to get these movies for his channel.
Max investigates further, and through a video of the expert Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), he learns that that TV screen would be the retina of the mind's eye, being part of the brain, and Videodrome transmission creates a brain tumor in the viewer, changing the reality in video hallucination."Videodrome", in my point of view, is a prophetic movie of David Cronenberg.
Perhaps if you are in a certain state of mind and/or enjoy psychoactive substances, you can enjoy this movie, but otherwise, it will probably just leave you with a sense of "I have no idea what is going on" and "That makes no sense" - even if you keep your wits about you it seems to veer off on tangents and loses cohesion regularly, and from the start.Maybe for the cult lovers who like spending afternoons at movie houses watching obscure films, it will be interesting (if they manage to make sense of, or rather, are able to absorb the bizarre sequence of events).Of course it includes all the "obligatory" elements a movie like this is supposed to have to keep the interest of the already more limited crowd this was aimed for, but even those seem forced, and don't seem to be included but for the sheer fact that it's customary.
While I found the ending and the ultimate uselessness of the James Woods character unsatisfying, Cronenberg's failure to draw a discernable line between the "new flesh" and "Videodrome" led to some stimulating conversation.
i'm not sure i got the point of this movie.i didn't find it profound or even controversial.then again,i just saw it for the first time about two hours ago.maybe if i had seen it back when it had first been released,i might have perceived it differently.anyway,i do think it was weird,if nothing else.and just this side of passably entertaining.the ending has me stymied.i know what happened.i'm just not sure what the point of it was.James Woods puts in a decent performance with what he is given,so he gets credit for lifting the material a bit.his is the only character that has any semblance of development at all.overall,i wouldn't run across the street to watch the movie again anytime soon.for me,Videodrome is a 5/10.
In fact, I would probably have found Videdrome totally unwatchable had Cronenberg not clarified its message and thereby given me something--a purpose--to hold onto as I watched itSo while I'm desperately clinging onto this purpose, we get follow likably sleazy TV cable programmer Max Renn (James Woods) as he discovers a frequency on the television transmission that shows a forbidden show, Videodrome.
Because it is so ridiculously (I don't want to say 'gratuitously' - as I think it had a point) gory, I sat crouched behind my friend for the main part of the film, burying my head in her shoulder and feeling really woozy when Cronenberg carved out freak-overload in the form of James Woods PIERCING Debbie Harry (That's right, "Blondie") with a rusty needle.
Woods plays the sleazy programmer perfectly.Director David Cronenberg takes us into a world where there are no limits; just where we are heading in TV and movies with torture porn.
The plot was just stupid, James Woods was even more wooden than usual, and Deborah Harry looked like she belonged in some other, much more interesting movie, before disappearing halfway through.
If you want to watch a really gross body horror film that questions what reality is, go check out eXistenZ-another Cronenberg film with similar themes to Videodrome but done way better..
James Woods plays a sleazy Cable TV station programmer who is looking for new shows, when he comes across a disturbing channel that seems to really show people being murdered; intrigued, he tracks down the tape to a mysterious broadcaster/messenger warning about a global conspiracy that will lead to the dehumanization of people, who will ultimately be transformed into living non-organic beings...Bizarre and violent film from director David Cronenberg contains a terrific performance from James Woods, and many prescient ideas about how technology will impact the human condition, as we gradually lose our identities(being an increasingly online culture really gives you pause!) but film is damaged by an unlikable lead character, and overdone visuals, which become increasingly disgusting, blotting out the more cerebral aspects to the story, which is really quite interesting, underneath all that ugliness...
Then he finds himself in a bizarre world of intrigue, sadomasochistic sex games and physical transformations.Written and Directed by David Cronenberg (Crash, The Fly "1986", They Came from Within) made an extremely underrated science-fiction film with elements of horror and eroticism.
Videodrome deals with the nature of the human body and its relationship to new technology expressed through gory special effects and loaded with vaginal imagery; in short, your typical Cronenberg movie.
Both of these assassinations involved fleshy guns.Both of these movies also involve an outsider of sorts being guided by an intriguing, sexy gal (James Woods and Jude Law being guided by Debbie Harry and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Videodrome and eXistenZ, respectively).Anyway, I guess I'm just babbling, but I wonder how much connection Cronenberg intended between these two films.On a completely different note, I found it funny that Channel 83 in Videodrome is a fledgling Toronto television station using things like soft core porn to get itself noticed and will ultimately redefine media in Canada; it also has a guy named Moses as one of the guys running it.
Even a majority of the characters including James Woods as sleazy cable TV programmer Max Renn could not even hold my interest.Considering this movie was released in 1983, it is still extremely violent, nasty, unpleasant, and very bizarre.
When a cable TV-manager Max Renn (James Woods) embarks on a venture into the next new craze, beyond soft porn or cheap horrors, his hacker employee Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) stumbles upon an scrambled feed of a show called Videodrome featuring torture, sexual deviance and ultimately murder.
All in all 80s prosthetics, dim lighting, decrepit aesthetics and faded, almost murky, colours seem more suited to Cronenberg's directorial style, than the CGI flared colour perfection of current cinema, which could explain the ultimate disappointment of "ExistenZ", which despite a similar story derails into a self-parody.Evidently filmed with body horror audience in mind with a fast hard-hitting and adequately convoluted plot (and an occasional corny one-liner to get the plot going), "Videodrome" nonetheless presents viewers with various underlying themes, peculiarly reminiscent of those analyzed in "Funny Games" (1997).
But Cronenberg stands alone with this one: it's an extremely personal film for the director, while also never losing sight of what makes the strongest science-fiction crawl under our collective skins.James Woods, in a role that requires him to go from his typical smarmy self to a man in the grip of a perpetual mind-f***, plays Mas Rent, who owns Civic TV- not anything very respectable, just a weirder, dirty cousin of Weird Al's UHF- who comes across a transmission on one of his pirated wavelengths for a program called Videodrome.
Videodrome remains some twenty-five years later a visceral movie-viewing experience, a film that many will pass off as just your typical Cronenberg fare.
It seems to me quite clear that Cronenberg does not really believe such things but has interestingly used them as a framework for a sci-fi horror film.Of course one of the most memorable things about this movie is its excellent Rick Baker special effects.
This is perhaps even more relevant today, in the age of reality TV, viral videos, and gonzo porn than it was in 1983.At the same time, though, Videodrome embodies the best of the B-movie: it has sex, violence, and most of all strangeness.
Max runs a TV channel during the day and seems like he doesn't get much of a break from his duties at home.Max Renn, played by the legendary James Woods, is always on the lookout for new cheap erotic thrills to broadcast on his channel and finds what he is looking for when he is called by an employee to view a transmission for a show called "Videodrome".Obsessed with trying to get the series on his channel, Max inadvertently reels in his girlfriend Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry) to it's bizarre sado-masochistic wonders and is caught between his want to know more and his fear in its meaning.Direction: 8/10 (David Cronenberg keeps pace with our emotions and intrigue as he draws us in) Cinematography: 10/10 (Mark Irwin keeps Videodrome seeping out of our TVs for the duration) Editing: 8/10 (Roland Sanders delivers once again, as he did with the Fly, intensifying every shot) Acting: 8/10 (James Woods gets help from great performances by Peter Dvorsky and Sonja Smits) Dialogue: 9/10 (Most of the time Cronenberg's script just wants to get straight to the point) Sound: 9/10 (Michael Jay does a great mix-down of all the elements) Effects: 10/10 (Rick Baker, involved in "American Werewolf...",makes part of a uniquely creative team) Art Direction: 10/10 (Carol Spier authenticates Videodrome's creepiness with matching sets) Costumes: 10/10 (Delphine White makes it all work with simple 80s fashion and a touch of bad) Music and/or Score: 10/10 (I'm looking for more of Howard Shore's work after hearing the main theme)Total Score: 92/100The cast was well chosen and, surprisingly, suits James Woods perfectly.
Written & Directed David Cronenberg, this body horror flick, is certainly not meant for the faint-hearted.'Videodrome' is set in Toronto during the early 80s, and follows the CEO of a small cable station, played by James Woods, who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring extreme violence and torture.
Though, naturally, we can choose to view the film as either a more serious and satirical work - with the psychological issues and elements of subtext giving way to a series of personal interpretations - or simply as an intelligent and sensational thriller - with the more fantastical presentation of the sex and violence being entertaining and thought-provoking in a purely visceral sense - the continual combination of these two separate elements really infuses the film with a cold and clinical quality that helps to set it apart from many other, more conventional "splatter" films being produced at this particular time.As with the director's earlier hit, Shivers (1975) - a sort of combination of sleazy exploitation film and high-brow social satire - one single interpretation of Videodrome can exist without the other; with the skillful atmosphere created by Cronenberg and his production team - when combined with the effective central performance from James Woods and some still incredibly powerful prosthetic creations from the legendary Rick Baker - showing Videodrome to be one of the most stark, surreal and clinically violent horror/science-fiction films of the 20th century.
Like Ken Russell's similarly-themed Altered States (1980), Videodrome is less a film than it is a sensory overload of images and ideas that work in both the literal and metaphorical senses; presenting a story that could be real or could be fantasy, and all tied to a central character who's flaws and various short-comings actually add to and reinforce our interpretation in a way that is beneficial to the more horrifying genre elements of the script.
david cronenberg creates a genre unto himself with movies like Videodrome, The Brood, eXistenZ, etc.
Videodrome can be seen as a turning point for writer/director David Cronenberg, away from the simpler shock horror movies of his past (Shivers, Rabid etc) and onto more serious and acclaimed works (Naked Lunch, Crash).
Max investigates further, and through a video by the media prophet Brian O'Blivion, he learns that that TV screens are the retina of the mind's eye, being part of the brain, and "Videodrome" transmissions create a brain tumor in the viewer, changing the reality through video hallucination.The film was made at a time when network television was at its peak and the video culture had just set in.
"Videodrome" is still Cronenberg's most unique and imaginative work.Of course the movie is also definitely helped by it's visual and hallucinative atmosphere that is filled with lots of gore and violence.