<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Videodrome
Release Date	February 4, 1983
Genre	Horror Sci Fi
Director	David Cronenberg
Screenwriter	David Cronenberg
Stars	James Woods Sonja Smits Deborah Harry Peter Dvorsky Leslie Carlson Jack Creley Lynne Gorman
Studio	Universal Pictures

Videodrome was reviled by many critics and ignored by mainstream audiences upon its initial release in 1983, but writer-director David Cronenberg’s visionary film has slowly gained a reputation as a prophetic masterpiece. Ferociously intelligent and absolutely fearless, it combines horror, social satire, kinky sex, and science fiction into a strange brew that still packs a punch.

Plot

Max Renn (James Woods) runs a sleazy little cable TV channel that attracts it viewers with the strongest pornography permissible, but he insists that his search for more prurient programming is only motivated by the lust for money. Nonetheless he becomes obsessed by Videodrome, a mysterious show transmitted by satellite that depicts scenes of brutal sadism. He gets involved with seductive Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry), the masochistic host of a call-in radio program, but she soon vanishes from his life and subsequently can only be seen on his television screen. And that’s the least of his problems, as the TV set develops signs of throbbing, swelling life, and an opening appears in Renn’s stomach that is suitable for the insertion of videocassettes. Renn’s growing sexual relationship with the media is gradually revealed to be a series of hallucinations caused by the malignant Videodrome signal, which is being used by reactionaries to find and destroy devotees of exotic erotica. His hand transformed into a moist, organic pistol, Renn is commanded to kill, but his desire for Nicki may enable him to defy his programmers and achieve transcendence through the medium of “The New Flesh.” Unless he’s just imagining everything, that is.

Alternately funny, disgusting, and dreamlike, Cronenberg’s film is a showcase for his bizarre imagination, and also a remarkably prescient view of a future that would include interactive media and internet erotica. There’s even a “Cathode Ray Mission” where the homeless are encouraged to watch television so that they can learn to be reintegrated into society. It was a bold move to make the movie’s protagonist a porn addict, but a supremely confident James Woods energizes and focuses the narrative no matter what twists and turns it takes. This must be the only movie ever released by a major studio in which the hero expresses his love by attacking his TV set with a bullwhip.