Videodrome (DVD)

A review of the Universal DVD, currently going for less than a fiver on amazon. Made in 1983, this is one of David Cronenberg's best films. The Canadian director was the weirdest and most personal of the 70s horror directors (unless you count David Lynch), and his early films are full of weird sexuality treated in an almost clinical way; understated acting; and pulsating body modification. Videodrome is the last of his early films; shortly afterwards he was making Stephen King adaptations and big budget special effects movies. He wasn't this interesting again until Crash (the car-crash-sex one, not the racism-is-bad one). A guy called Max Renn ...  Read the complete review

Davind Cronenbourg's 1983 film Videodrome is an unsettling and surreal sci-fi thriller that deals with issues of existentialism, sadism, masochism, morality and the influence of television on cognition and behaviour. The films stars James Woods as Max Renn, the enterprising head of a sleazy tv station who is on the lookout for something new and fresh with which to titillate his audience. Using a pirate satellite dish, one of Renn's technicians comes across a bizarre show being broadcast from an unknown location appearing to show defenceless individuals being tortured and then murdered within a small, unfurnished chamber. Renn is fascinated by the show, ...  Read the complete review

David Cronenberg is a director well known for his visceral and gratuitously violent films, from the cult classic Scanners to Oscar-nominated gangster flick Eastern Promises. Videodrome is one of his best 1980s films, with a dedicated lead performance from James Woods. It's also truly one of the strangest films ever made. Woods plays a TV producer who is looking for some more daring TV programming to bring his ratings back up. Thanks to Debbie Harry, who takes some time out from her band Blondie to progress the plot forward, he becomes embroilled in Videodrome, a program in which the central protagonist is viciously murdered. What's worse, they cause the person ...  Read the complete review

When it comes to the grotesque pleasures of body-horror, where else do you go but the catalogue of David Cronenberg? Although he is (arguably) a one trick pony of sorts, it's hard to condemn when looking back at one cult hit after another during the late seventies and throughout the eighties. Reacquainting myself with the perverse pleasures of Cronenberg's niche, I decided to sit down and relax with a copy of his 1983 mind melder 'Videodrome', possibly his best offering from that period. 'Videodrome' follows the story of likeable sleaze ball Max Renn (James Woods), a TV executive for the equally sleazy Civic TV Channel 83; an underground TV station that ...  Read the complete review

One of my all time favourites, this is both the ultimate sicko fantasy and the culmination of David Cronenberg's career attempt to make the human body seem twisted and capable of horiffic invasions. The basic plot follows Max Renn (James Wood, excellent performance), a sleasy TV exec on a low budget station. He's after the ultimate ratings boost, and thinks he's found it when his engineer stumbles across a pirate broadcast entitled Videodrome. It consists of bondage and torturein a bare, clay walled room. He thinks it's brilliant. While tracking the broadcast down, he starts to notice certain changes in his environment. He starts going with Debbie ...  Read the complete review