The story is about Max Renn (James Woods), a cable-TV programmer, who is trying to find a new and fresh kind of program for his station. He looks for anything to do with sex, violence and anything to find new interest in viewers. When he and his hacker friend Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) finds a broadcast of snuff tv called "Videodrome", Max does what he can to find out information on it. Harlan finds out it's being broadcasted from Pittsburgh and after this Max meets a girl named Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry). They watch Videodrome together and both of them, especially Max, begin to hallucinate.
Soon it becomes apparent, to Max, that Videodrome is something that was created by a company called "Spectacular Optical". It was made as a mind control device and created by Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson), head of Spectacular Optical.
Max finds out that his friend Harlan isn't really his friend, but a spy sent in from Spectacular Optical and that Videodrome was never broadcasted, but Harlan played it for him on a tape. Everything then begins to spiral out of control, Max hallucinates more and it is hard for him to tell what's real and what isn't.
This movie is one of the smartest and one of the best "thinker" movies out there. For this reason, it is difficult to tell the whole synopsis and exactly what is going on. It is more fun and more interesting to let the viewer figure out the twists and turns in the film. When you do have a good grasp at the story, it makes the ending that much better.
James Woods does a fine job in this movie. To me he is an underrated actor, who never gets his dues.
A surprisingly decent role comes from Deborah Harry, not known for acting more for singing. She is another standout actor in this film.
It is surprising that Cronenberg made this movie with a budget just under 6 million. The special make-up effects and gore effects in this movie look amazing. Everything from Wood's open gut wound, to the TV that comes alive, to the flesh-videotape and the flesh-gun, look outstanding. All of this and more, done on a small budget. This movie is great from top to bottom, and is easily in my Top 100 movies.
My Dvd is the Widescreen edition and has a super-cool front cover. Weirdly there are no reviews, even though I've seen them on other editions of this movie, on Dvd. It does say that the Dvd is the "Complete Uncut Version, including footage never shown in theatres, which is usually a good thing.
Videodrome was released in 1983 and directed by David Cronenberg. Released by Universal Pictures.
Collection#:
Videodrome: #432
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