Dir. David Cronenberg
USA, 1983
The 80s were an unusual time in cinematic history. Filled with everything from teen rom-coms to thriller dystopias and gory slasher flicks, it was an interesting time for the American audience. One film that personifies this weirdness in cinematic time is Videodrome. Not for the faint of heart, Videodrome explores the snuff and smut film world and a disturbing producer looking for the next horrific fad. The subject of the film gets even weirder when he ends up finding this unaired channel called Videodrome, which contains 24 hour live shows of people being killed in a sexual manner. It ends up (spoiler alert) that Videodrome gives, anyone who watches it, horrible hallucinations and tumors in their brain.
Filled with an unlikely cast: James Woods, Deborah Harry, Jack Cresley and Leslie Carlson, Videodrome explores the hyper intensity of violence in the media and the future of technology as we know it. A disturbingly erotic film, Videodrome goes above and beyond its message to heavily hand the audience graphic images not easily erased from the brain. Perhaps the film, Videodrome, is trying to imitate the graphic hallucinations of the said "Videodrome" in the movie; however, the fleshy and grotesque images pictured leave the audience with a disturbed and dirty feeling.
Within the film, Woods and Harry's characters explore the masochistic side of sex as well as the sadistic side. This can be seen in the way Harry's character burns herself with a cigarette post coitally. This is then gruesomely amplified when Woods' character is taken over by the hallucinations of Videodrome and his stomach turns into a giant fleshy vagina. With this "new opening" he is tortured by those around him when they insert videos into him to "reprogram" him. The metaphor is superbly heavy handed, and in some way, I found it insulting to the female organ. Yes, I understand, that they are mentally and emotionally raping him, but the use of a "stomach vagina" seemed unthought out and crass.
Overall, the film is one of the weirdest I've seen, and that includes the international spectrum. Although the film has the potential to be an interesting social commentary, the heavy handedness of the message (which is particular to the 80s) is too much to bear. Because of the overbearing images and motifs, the film becomes crass, corny, and absurd (and not in the good way).
USA, 1983
The 80s were an unusual time in cinematic history. Filled with everything from teen rom-coms to thriller dystopias and gory slasher flicks, it was an interesting time for the American audience. One film that personifies this weirdness in cinematic time is Videodrome. Not for the faint of heart, Videodrome explores the snuff and smut film world and a disturbing producer looking for the next horrific fad. The subject of the film gets even weirder when he ends up finding this unaired channel called Videodrome, which contains 24 hour live shows of people being killed in a sexual manner. It ends up (spoiler alert) that Videodrome gives, anyone who watches it, horrible hallucinations and tumors in their brain.
Filled with an unlikely cast: James Woods, Deborah Harry, Jack Cresley and Leslie Carlson, Videodrome explores the hyper intensity of violence in the media and the future of technology as we know it. A disturbingly erotic film, Videodrome goes above and beyond its message to heavily hand the audience graphic images not easily erased from the brain. Perhaps the film, Videodrome, is trying to imitate the graphic hallucinations of the said "Videodrome" in the movie; however, the fleshy and grotesque images pictured leave the audience with a disturbed and dirty feeling.
Within the film, Woods and Harry's characters explore the masochistic side of sex as well as the sadistic side. This can be seen in the way Harry's character burns herself with a cigarette post coitally. This is then gruesomely amplified when Woods' character is taken over by the hallucinations of Videodrome and his stomach turns into a giant fleshy vagina. With this "new opening" he is tortured by those around him when they insert videos into him to "reprogram" him. The metaphor is superbly heavy handed, and in some way, I found it insulting to the female organ. Yes, I understand, that they are mentally and emotionally raping him, but the use of a "stomach vagina" seemed unthought out and crass.
Overall, the film is one of the weirdest I've seen, and that includes the international spectrum. Although the film has the potential to be an interesting social commentary, the heavy handedness of the message (which is particular to the 80s) is too much to bear. Because of the overbearing images and motifs, the film becomes crass, corny, and absurd (and not in the good way).