Director: David Cronenberg
Screenplay: David Cronenberg
Starring: James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Les Carlson, Jack Creley, Lynne Gorman
Running Time: 89 minutes
Genre: Science-fiction, horror
Max Renn (Woods) is the president of a small cable TV network in Toronto which specialises in soft-core porn and gratuitous violence. Unhappy with the current line-up, Renn is looking for something that will "break through". He thinks that he has found it when he stumbles upon a broadcast called Videodrome, which depicts relentless torture and murder. Renn becomes increasingly obsessed with Videodrome, and finds himself undergoing bizarre physical changes.
This is one of the definitive works of director David Cronenberg, and a classic of what has become known as "body horror". The film began life as a script called "Network of Blood" which Cronenberg wrote inspired by his childhood memories of watching TV late at night, when the Canadian stations went off air he would sometimes pick up faint broadcasts from the US, and the young Cronenberg worried that he might stumble across something dangerous or subversive. The film initially begins as a conspiracy thriller before becoming a surrealistic nightmare. James Woods turns in a powerful performance as the shifty, nervy Max Renn, and pop singer Deborah Harry is impressive as radio host Nikki Brand (who lives up to her name with her taste for burning her own breasts with cigarettes). The film is full of memorable and disturbing images, such as the gaping mouth-like hole that opens in Renn's chest and functions as a VCR, and the handgun that fuses with Renn's hand.
Looking at it today, while a lot of the technology seems inevitably dated, it's still remarkably prescient and ahead of it's time in it's depiction of a world where media manipulates and controls the minds and bodies of it's consumers.
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