Videodrome

what the film does

max renn (james woods) runs CIVIC-TV, a toronto UHF station that broadcasts softcore porn and violence. his satellite operator harlan discovers a scrambled signal from malaysia called videodrome, a show that depicts realistic torture and murder with no plot. max thinks it is the future of television and orders harlan to pirate it. nicki brand (debbie harry), a radio host who gets aroused by pain, watches videodrome with max and then auditions for the show in pittsburgh. she never comes back. max investigates and discovers that brian o’blivion, a media theorist who only communicates by videotape, knew the truth: videodrome is a broadcast signal that causes malignant brain tumors. the hallucinations it produces are real.

barry convex of the spectacular optical corporation, an eyeglasses company that is actually an arms manufacturer, has weaponized videodrome to kill anyone obsessed with sex and violence. convex inserts a brainwashing betamax tape into a slit in max’s abdomen. under convex’s control, max murders his business partners. o’blivion’s daughter bianca reprograms max with a new directive: death to videodrome, long live the new flesh. max kills convex by shooting him with a handgun that has fused to his wrist, causing convex’s body to erupt into tumors. max then shoots himself on a derelict boat in the toronto port lands, following nicki’s televised instructions to leave the old flesh.

why this one

videodrome is a canadian body-horror film from 1983 that predicted the internet’s relationship with screen addiction, user-generated violence, and the way media consumption reshapes identity. cronenberg took marshall mcluhan’s theories literally: the medium is the massage, and the massage kills you. the special effects by rick baker created images that the mpaa tried to cut, and the restored criterion edition shows what universal was too scared to release in american theaters. james woods gives the performance of his career as a man whose body becomes a vcr. debbie harry proves she is more than a pop star. the film bombed on release and is now studied in media theory courses alongside the theorists it dramatized. criterion-4: no other film has made flesh and signal indistinguishable, then made the audience watch that fusion destroy a man from the inside.