Movie Review - Videodrome

Videodrome

The audio review:



Well, we're on a roll this week with films that have pretty significant themes and criticisms of the horror genre. David Cronenberg's Videodrome is one such film, providing commentary on the fetishism of the ultraviolence in films while containing... a good chunk of gore itself. How's that for irony!

So Videodrome tends to focus its plot on the transmission of a mysterious television signal which is basically a series of snuff films and torture porn put to video. James Woods plays Max, a television producer for extreme cable network "Channel 83," their mission statement focused on providing quality gore and sexual violence for the sadistic masses. Max becomes obsessed with the snuff signal, aptly named Videodrome, and proceeds to attempt to find out where it's coming from, but along the way he begins to hallucinate holes in his stomach, gun hands, and giant television screen lips.

Inevitably, Videodrome becomes a trip through surrealistic images and grotesque violence. But it's not thrown all willy-nilly into the plot, which would create a lot of plot holes and unresolved conflicts. Instead, the surrealism is incorporated gradually, and it works so well because Cronenberg starts the viewer off grounded in a sleazy but realistic world. The characters seem pretty normal, and Max might have a fetish for violence and pain but it's not unheard of in reality.

But Cronenberg quickly transitions from reality to surreality in a seamless motion, and Videodrome becomes a test of understanding what exactly is really happening. Woods plays the deranged man well, and his actions become more chaotic throughout the film.

And Cronenberg does suck the audience in, too, by refusing to allow Max to become insane throughout much of the film. Instead, Max is just as confused as we are, and instead of losing the audience as the film progresses, the exposition is provided by Max as he finds out just what is happening. Videodrome doesn't devolve into psychological clap-trap, even though it is populated with ten dollar words relating to the brain and psychoanalysis. It makes the film more penetrable.

The violence is well-done, semi-comedic but also grotesque. There's a lot of stand-out sequences here, from feuding bodily organs to more torturous scenes, but they're all extreme enough to grab the attention. Cronenberg paces the film really well, so that the visceral scenes happen evenly throughout until the mind-blowing climax.

The story does conclude, too, and there are no mysteries left unsolved. Videodrome remains a film that deals with violence in media throughout, but it expands to bring in mental slavery as well, making its motif stronger for it. It might not appeal to everyone, especially those that don't like to be jerked around by non-straightforward plot twists, but anyone looking for a really enthralling, mind-bending experience would do well to check out Cronenberg's take on violent fetishism showcased here.

Videodrome on Rotten Tomatoes