When he acquires a different kind of show for his station, a sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a terrifying new reality.
After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife, and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.
A mild-mannered man becomes a local hero through an act of violence, which sets off repercussions that will shake his family to its very core in this action thriller.
A young woman develops a taste for human blood after experimental plastic surgery, and her victims turn into blood-thirsty zombies, leading into a city-wide epidemic.
A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.
Director:
David Cronenberg
Stars:
Ralph Fiennes,
Miranda Richardson,
Gabriel Byrne
Max Renn is the President of Channel 83 Civic-TV, a small television station on the UHF dial. He defends his programming of largely X-rated shows - which depict graphic sex and extreme violence - as a pure matter of economic survival as a small station. Behind closed doors in specific company, he would admit that he enjoys such programming, but as President will stay away from associated activities that may be dangerous for him in its purchase. His current girlfriend, radio personality Nicki Brand, who he met on a television talk show, is sexually aroused by light mutilation on her person, that despite or because her radio show is like an open air crisis hotline. On that same talk show, the other guest via video feed was Professor Brian O'Blivion - solely his stage name - who believes that television and video broadcasts will one day overtake the world as reality, which may make Max's programming in combination more dangerous. In Max's search for the next big thing in like programming...Written by
Huggo
Barry Convex proclaims Lorenzo de Medici as the author of the two famous ocular quotes. The first, "love comes in at the eye", is from a William Butler Yeats poem called "A Drinking Song". The second, "the eye is the window of the soul", is not definitively attributable to any one source. Seemingly similar variations exist in Cicero, European proverbs and the Gospel of Matthew. See more »
Quotes
[about violence]
Max Renn:
Better on T.V. than on the streets.
See more »
Crazy Credits
The VIDEODROME title experiences a TV white noise distortion. See more »
Alternate Versions
The original UK cinema release featured the U.S R-rated print. The initial 1987 UK video version was pre-edited by 3 minutes before submission and the longer US R-rated version was released uncut on video in 1990 (this is the currently available UK DVD version). The unrated U.S 'Director's Cut' has also been released on laserdisc in the UK, rated 18. See more »
I had the "bad luck" to watch eXistenZ well before i set my eyes upon this work of director David Cronenberg. Bad luck, as eXistenZ basically consists of the same ingredients as Videodrome, and kind of spoils the subliminal story line of Videodrome. I guess it's impossible to see Videodrome and eXistenZ as separate movies, as they both handle a subject that obviously intrigues David Cronenburg. Where eXistenZ had so much more to it, for Videodrome, the subject is really the only good thing about it.
To me it seems Videodrome suffers from a lack of enthusiasm from both director and actors. The flat acting of pretty much everybody, but especially James Woods, turn the characters from potentially mysterious into plain geeks. There's Deborah Harry, who moans herself halfway through this movie (be it in bed or in the torture room), as a kinky radio-presenter and there's a strange TV-program saleswoman dressed like a Bulgarian fortune teller. Also, a number of outbursts of violence in this movie are either witnessed by zombie-like bystanders or are just ways to force the movie through some big holes in the script. With these facts, the unexpected plot twists become highly incredible.
Maybe Videodrome made some impact in the time it was released, but nowadays the idea that a video-tape embodies evil is somewhat outdated. Cronenberg was a bit smarter when adapting the story for eXistenZ (can't help but mentioning it), as it tells of an electronic device which may just as well never be invented, and therefore will give the movie more longevity than Videodrome.
Videodrome would be a must-see for Cronenberg die-hards, as it shows him making an early attempt at making a movie that shows a world, switching between reality and hallucination, on the brink of revolution. He finally succeeded in this with eXistenZ, which is a much better attempt in telling the Videodrome story.
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I had the "bad luck" to watch eXistenZ well before i set my eyes upon this work of director David Cronenberg. Bad luck, as eXistenZ basically consists of the same ingredients as Videodrome, and kind of spoils the subliminal story line of Videodrome. I guess it's impossible to see Videodrome and eXistenZ as separate movies, as they both handle a subject that obviously intrigues David Cronenburg. Where eXistenZ had so much more to it, for Videodrome, the subject is really the only good thing about it.
To me it seems Videodrome suffers from a lack of enthusiasm from both director and actors. The flat acting of pretty much everybody, but especially James Woods, turn the characters from potentially mysterious into plain geeks. There's Deborah Harry, who moans herself halfway through this movie (be it in bed or in the torture room), as a kinky radio-presenter and there's a strange TV-program saleswoman dressed like a Bulgarian fortune teller. Also, a number of outbursts of violence in this movie are either witnessed by zombie-like bystanders or are just ways to force the movie through some big holes in the script. With these facts, the unexpected plot twists become highly incredible.
Maybe Videodrome made some impact in the time it was released, but nowadays the idea that a video-tape embodies evil is somewhat outdated. Cronenberg was a bit smarter when adapting the story for eXistenZ (can't help but mentioning it), as it tells of an electronic device which may just as well never be invented, and therefore will give the movie more longevity than Videodrome.
Videodrome would be a must-see for Cronenberg die-hards, as it shows him making an early attempt at making a movie that shows a world, switching between reality and hallucination, on the brink of revolution. He finally succeeded in this with eXistenZ, which is a much better attempt in telling the Videodrome story.