Blondie singer Debbie Harry is one totally kinky slut in this thoughtful horror masterpiece from director David Cronenberg. She gets whipped in an S&M video, lets James Woods do weird shit to her body with a needle and gives up some side boob and bun.
Danger After Dark ranking -- 4 stars
Ah, words fail me on this one, but I'll attempt to remain coherent nonetheless…Canadian genre auteur David Cronenberg has directed some of contemporary horror cinema's most significant films -- The Brood, Shivers, The Fly -- but Videodrome remains perhaps his finest achievement to date. A remarkably complex, experimental exploration of the mutating relationship of man to media, Videodrome is easily one of the most adventurous films released by a major studio in the 1980s, as well as one of that decade's most influential and memorable movies. Coming off of the enormous success of Scanners (one of the director's most accessible works), Cronenberg was able to attract major studio financing (Universal), a name actor (James Woods, in one of his most manic-cum-charismatic performances), elaborate special makeup effects from Oscar-winner Rick Baker, and a wide national release – which he then used to create his most challenging and confrontational film (unsurprisingly, following Videodrome's initially unenthused reception, the director would make his subsequent project choices – a Stephen King adaptation and a remake of a 50s sci-fi fave – somewhat more conservative). Reaction upon the film’s 1983 release was tepid at best, hostile at worst, but such a reception is predictable: like Lynch's masterpiece Lost Highway (another film greeted with mixed reactions), Videodrome finds a unique filmmaker operating at the peak of his powers, advancing the genre (even the medium) in bold ways that may initially confound as much as delight. The story of Videodrome unfolds as an ominous thriller in its early stages: Toronto cable television proprietor Max Renn (Woods) stumbles across a pirate transmission of a cryptically transgressive program involving torture and murder, and – both seduced and appalled – he attempts to track down the origins of this "Videodrome" spectacle. The establishment of Videodrome's central premise is thoroughly creepy, as Cronenberg invests the first half of the film with a sinister and unnerving aura reminiscent of the best paranoia/conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s. And then... linear narrative progression takes a back seat to Freudian free-form freak-out, as Max begins to hallucinate and/or mutate as a result of exposure to the "Videodrome" program, and Cronenberg creates a surreal cinematic collision of Dali and McLuhan, with Videodrome functioning as a gooey metaphor for how media invades and structures our lives (Cronenberg was years ahead of his time with his cinematic analysis; one's mind could boggle at the notion of him tackling a similar project dealing with the internet, but perhaps this film already serves that function as well).
One of the genre's most imaginative and accomplished works, Videodrome is must viewing for anyone interested in the cerebral and audacious fringes of horror cinema. And remember: see ya' in Pittsburgh.
Audio commentary: by director David Cronenberg, actors James Woods and Deborah Harry, and director of photography Mark Irwin
Camera, a short film directed by David Cronenberg in 2000 as part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the Toronto Film Festival
Documentaries: Forming the Flesh, a new half-hour documentary featurette by video effects artist Michael Lennick about the creation of Videodrome's landmark effects
Samurai Dreams, the complete and unedited faux Japanese AV feature seen in the film
Fear on Film, a 26 minute roundtable discussion from '81 between filmmakers David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, John Landis, and Mick Garris about censorship, special effects, makeup, and horror cinema
Stills gallery featuring hundreds of rare behind-the-scenes production photos, special effects makeup tests, and publicity photos
