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Videodrome (1983)
Starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah
Harry, Peter Dvorsky & Jack Creley
Written & Directed by David Cronenberg
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I realize the last film I reviewed for this disease ridden, mangled whore of a website was a David Cronenberg film. What can I say? I needed to satiate my urge to watch people turn into grotesque flesh growths...again.
Max Renn (James Wood) is a cable television producer who is notorious for creating enthralling, perverted programming. When Renn and his cohorts find and unscramble a hidden channel called Videodrome, Renn is determined to re-create the hardcore smut Videodrome brings to life.
Renn befriends fellow fuck-fiend Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry) after appearing on a talk show with Brian O'Blivion, who specializes in the blending of television and reality. (I bet there's a pop-punk band front man who's cutting his wrists horizontally because he didn't hear that name before calling his alter-persona Craig O'bscurea.)
After swapping bodily fluids via needle pricks, Brand shares her desire to be bound, shocked and fucked on Videodrome's smarmy set. As you can imagine, everything digresses from this point, and reality and fiction are blended: hands transform into sinewy guns, chests turn into gapping, vagina-like videocassette slots, and people turn into blubbering piles of torn muscle and broken bone.
Bianca O'Blivion (Brian's daughter) and Videodrome producers deliver varied and fucked-up forms of redemption in maniacal spats, but alas, the characters can only find peace through bodily "transformation."
Videodrome is memorable because Cronenberg shows how people can become obsessed with thrill-seeking, violence, sex, and control. While the subject matter, which is centered around smut, could be presented in a graphic manner, it isn't. Cronenberg doesn't go for the cheap shots (this time), and that's kind of refreshing. Now, don't get me wrong. I love to watch nipples get chopped off as much as the next gal, but it's nice to see a weird, sci-horror film that's slightly subtle and contains more thought than gore.
Anyway.
The moral of the story: if you're not careful, you may turn into the pulp you push.
Heh.
I guess I should watch my back.
(Fuck.)
Videodrome on IMDB
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abbie