Videodrome (1983) – David Cronenberg’s Visionary Tech Horror

‘First it controls your mind. Then it destroys your body.’

‘Long live the new flesh.’

“Videodrome” is a psychological, science fiction horror film. The film’s storyline follows a television producer, Max Renn (James Woods), who aspires to expand the viewing audience of his UHF television station, CIVIC-TV. Max is constantly in pursuit of radical, cutting-edge programming that will push the boundaries of sex and violence. Although the station’s regular programming specializes in the perverse, Max grows bored with the current lineup. Soon, with help from his tech guy, he discovers a grainy broadcast signal featuring gratuitous violence, torture, and death.

This strange broadcast, known as “Videodrome,” intrigues Max to the point of pursuing the creators to negotiate rights for what could be a potential hit for his station. Believing the footage to be staged snuff television, Max begins pirating the program and also recording it for his own personal viewing. While appearing on a talk show, he meets his soon-to-be girlfriend, Nicki Brand (Debbie Harry), a sadomasochistic radio psychiatrist. On the talk show, Max defends his choice of programs on his network to both Nicki and Professor Brian O’Blivion (Jack Creley), a philosopher who only appears on television if his image is broadcast per television set, with his true whereabouts remaining secret. O’Blivion predicts that the future will bring about an age in which television will replace real life. Max’s curiosity for Videodrome leads him to investigate and discover the truth behind the signal’s source, eventually losing touch with reality and spiraling down a path of deception, mind control, an unusual socio-political movement, and bizarre hallucinations.

The surreal film was written and directed by David Cronenberg. The innovative director has been recognized as a forefather of a subgenre of horror known as “body horror,” which is characterized by themes pertaining to the mortal fears of one’s own body, such as disease, disaster, mind expansion, hallucinations, and bodily transformation. His style interweaves the psychological with the physical in films such as “Shivers,” “Rabid,” “The Brood,” “Naked Lunch,” “Scanners,” and “Videodrome.”

Like many of Cronenberg’s works, “Videodrome” includes a number of visually disturbing scenes that demonstrate the fusing of technology with biology. Cronenberg’s general premise for most of his films consists of the distortion of reality and hallucinations, revealed through the abuse of science, technology, biology, and drug use. The “new flesh” theme is not only evident in “Videodrome” but also in several of his films.

A number of things were said to have influenced Cronenberg’s “Videodrome.” These include the urban legends of the 1940s World War era, such as the concept of mind control and brain tumor-inducing television waves. During the ’70s and ’80s, Cronenberg picked up American television signals late at night after the Canadian stations had gone off the air, and he worried he might see something disturbing not meant for public consumption. In addition, Cronenberg’s “Civic TV” was apparently based on an old Canadian station that actually did broadcast pornography.

Punk icon Debbie Harry of the new wave band Blondie stars as Nicki Brand, James Woods’s sexually provocative, sadomasochistic girlfriend. Debbie changed her signature two-toned hair to red for the role and portrayed the character using dronish mannerisms and a monotone voice, which added to the character’s disturbing, erotic, and detached persona. In the film, Nicki introduces Max to sadomasochistic play, which includes having him continuously impale her earlobe with a rather large needle. Her other diversions include branding herself with cigarette burns to her breast.

When Nicki decides to pursue an audition for Videodrome, she delivers some noteworthy quotes; “I was made for that show,” she asserts. She declares to Max, “It has something you don’t have, it has a philosophy, and that is what makes it dangerous.” Cronenberg has said in interviews that the name Nicki Brand was influenced by the character’s taste for self-mutilation. “Nicki” (to nick or cut) and “Brand” was supposedly used to suggest (to brand or burn).

Debbie Harry has had a lengthy career in acting that spanned many television appearances and film roles. However, in my opinion, her standout roles were in cult movies such as “Roadie” (1980), “Videodrome” (1983), “Rock & Rule” (animated voice-over character), “Hairspray” (1988), “Tales from the Darkside: The Movie” (1990), “Body Bags” (1993), and “Drop Dead Rock” (1996), which also starred fellow new waver, Adam Ant.

James Woods portrayed his character with extreme intensity and passion. He used comedic sarcasm and snarkiness to lighten the heavy mood of the film. He convinced his audience that the head-trip horror of his physical and psychological deterioration, which he endured, was all too real.

The original synthesized score was composed for Videodrome by Cronenberg’s friend, Howard Shore, which—despite having a rock star cast in the film—did not contain any rock and roll tracks. However, due to Videodrome’s cult status and dark, edgy, cyberpunk undertones, it has had a lasting influence on rock music. Several bands ranging in genres have sampled the film; from metal, punk, and industrial, to EBM bands.

Some of the bands, just to mention a few who have sampled the film, include Skinny Puppy, EMF, Slipknot, Meat Beat Manifesto, Front 242, Psychic TV, Dope on Plastic, The Klinik, Snog, Cyberaktif, Big Audio Dynamite, Bomb the Bass, Seba, and Paradox.

Videodrome: WTF Moments:

• O’Blivion’s office is located at his charity, “The Cathode Ray Mission,” where the homeless are provided food, shelter, clothing, and marathon sessions of television viewing (the necessities of life). The mission is mysteriously run by O’Blivion’s daughter, Bianca (Sonja Smits), whose aim is to contribute to her father’s vision of a world in which television replaces everyday life.
• Max’s torso transforms into a gaping hole that functions as a VCR, which I had initially mistaken for a “vajayjay,” AKA a vagina-type slit.
• Max must endure an additional gaping hole in his abdomen, which he plunges a handgun into in order to carry his “concealed weapon.” The gun drips an oozy substance whenever he pulls it out of his pouch.
• Breathing television sets, and videotapes that quiver and shake as if they were being stimulated.
• Throughout the film, Max is programmed, deprogrammed, and reprogrammed with numerous pulsating inserted VHS tapes.
• Nicki appears to Max on television, in which the top of the set becomes a heaving eroticist zone that responds to his touch. Nicki’s lips engulf the TV frame and develop into a vortex protruding out of the screen which envelops Max.
• Nicki eagerly auditions for the Videodrome and never returns.
• Max takes refuge on a dilapidated boat, where Nicki appears to him on a TV set. She tells him he has weakened Videodrome, but in order to completely defeat it, he has to ascend to the next level and “leave the old flesh.”
• During a climactic scene, a television set explodes and splatters bloody human intestines everywhere.
• The Videodrome program set takes place in a chamber that is made up of a reddish-orange fleshy type substance, resembling the inside of a pumpkin.
• The film features an eyeglass company, “Spectacular Optical Corporation,” which on the surface is an eyeglasses company but is actually a guise for a NATO weapons manufacturer.
• Max is forced to wear cyberpunk headgear resembling an old school hairdryer.
• Fatal brain tumors are given to “lowlifes” fixated on extreme sex and violence, as part of a crypto-government conspiracy.
• During a death scene at a trade show, a character is being gunned down; as this occurs his body erupts into cancer tumors emerging to the surface from out of his exposed insides.
• Max’s hand fuses with a gun, literally, forging a “flesh gun” or literally, a “hand gun.”
• A villain’s hand fuses with a grenade, forming literally a “hand grenade,” which then blows him up!
• Max enlists the elderly, Masha (Lynne Gorman), a “feminist pornographer” to help him find out the secrets of Videodrome.

Videodrome reminded me of several preceding films. Just to mention a few, the fusing, melting of flesh and body parts reminded me of “High Society” (1989) and also, Videodrome was “Fifty Shades of Grey” minus death and hallucinations.

Videodrome was ahead of its time in countless ways. Reflecting back on the film, the themes continue to be relevant today. Videodrome strangely projected the future of modern technology. The popularity of reality television, social media, and modern voyeurism, such as drones and computer videoing, has blurred the borders of reality concerning man and technology. If it wasn’t for the box-style television sets, VCR, and VHS references, one would not be able to determine the decade in which this film was produced.

I found myself relating to Videodrome on many levels, in particular I have felt much like Max at times in my life, “a human VCR.” Being continuously programmed and reprogrammed. Or, it could be the fact that I’m such a fan of difficult-to-find cult movies, which remain on VHS format and are yet to be released in DVD or Blu-ray format. Regardless, I don’t have to fret concerning Videodrome receiving a proper release. It has had several releases, which includes being released as part of the Criterion Collection, which includes many unreleased extras. These include the mini films featured in Videodrome: “Samurai Dreams” and “Apollo & Dionysus.”