videodrome

Director: david cronenberg

Actor: james woods,debbie harry,sonja smits,peter dvorsky

Data Published: Fri Feb 04 1983

Genres: Horror,Sci-Fi,Thriller

Key Words: snuff film,hallucination,surrealism,body horror,suicide

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome

Description: Videodrome is a movie starring James Woods, Debbie Harry, and Sonja Smits. A programmer at a TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.

Plot: Max Renn is the president of CIVIC-TV, a Toronto UHF television station specializing in sensationalistic programming. Displeased with his station's current lineup (which mostly consists of softcore pornography and gratuitous violence), Max is looking for something that will break through to a new audience. One morning, he is summoned to the clandestine office of Harlan, who operates CIVIC-TV's unauthorized satellite dish which can intercept broadcasts from as far away as Asia. Harlan shows Renn Videodrome, a plotless television show apparently being broadcast out of Malaysia which depicts the brutal torture and eventual murder of anonymous victims in a reddish-orange chamber. Believing this to be the future of television, Max orders Harlan to begin unlicensed use of the show. Max experiences a hallucination, the first of many. Appearing on a talk show, Max defends his station's programming choices to Nicki Brand, a psychiatrist and radio host, and professor Brian O'Blivion, a pop-culture analyst and philosopher who will only appear on television if his image is broadcast into the studio, onto a television, from a remote location. O'Blivion delivers a speech prophesying a future in which television supplants real life. Max dates Nicki, who is sexually aroused when he shows her an episode of Videodrome and coaxes him into having sadomasochistic sex with her while they watch it. Max goes once again to Harlan's office, where Harlan tells him that the signal delay which caused it to appear to be coming from Malaysia was a ploy by the broadcaster and that Videodrome is being broadcast out of Pittsburgh. Max tells Nicki this and she excitedly goes to Pittsburgh to audition for the show under the guise of a business trip, but never returns. Max contacts Masha, a softcore pornographer, and asks her to help him find out the truth about Videodrome. Through Masha, Max learns that not only is the footage not faked, but it is the public "face" of a political movement. Masha further informs him that O'Blivion knows about Videodrome. Max tracks down O'Blivion to the Cathode Ray Mission, a mission where homeless people are provided food, shelter, and clothing, and encouraged to engage in marathon sessions of television viewing. He discovers the mission is run by O'Blivion's daughter, Bianca, with the goal of helping to bring about her father's vision of a world in which television replaces every aspect of everyday life. Later, Max views a videotape in which O'Blivion informs him that Videodrome is a socio-political battleground in which a war is being fought for control of the minds of the people of North America. Shortly thereafter, Max begins experiencing disturbing hallucinations in which his torso transforms into a gaping hole that functions as a VCR. Bianca tells him these are side-effects from having viewed Videodrome, which carries a broadcast signal that causes the viewer to develop a malignant brain tumour. O'Blivion helped to create it as part of his vision for the future, but when he found out it was to be used for malevolent purposes, he attempted to stop his partners; they used his own invention to kill him. In the year before his death, O'Blivion recorded tens of thousands of videos, which now form the basis of his television appearances. Max is contacted by Videodrome's producer, the Spectacular Optical Corporation; an eyeglasses company that acts as a front for a weapons manufacturer. The head of Spectacular Optical, Barry Convex, has been secretly working with Harlan to get Max exposed to Videodrome and to have him broadcast it, as part of a conspiracy to "purge" North America, giving fatal brain tumours to "lowlifes" fixated on extreme sex and violence. Convex then inserts a brainwashing video tape into Max's torso. Under Convex's influence, Max murders his colleagues at CIVIC-TV, and later attempts to murder Bianca O'Blivion, but she manages to stop Max by showing him a videotape of Nicki being strangled to death. Bianca then 'reprograms' him to turn against Videodrome. On her orders, Max kills Harlan and Convex. Afterwards, Max takes refuge on a derelict boat, where Nicki appears to him on a television. 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". The television then shows an image of Max shooting himself in the head, which causes the set to explode. Reenacting what he has just seen on the television, Max utters the words "Long live the new flesh", and shoots himself.