Videodrome

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: One of the best movies ever made. Cronenberg hit top form and top weirdness with this one. This is not just another hole in the stomach for inserting video cassettes film?!, this is the one that worked. The best way to watch this film is to have very little knowledge of what it is about before seeing it. So all I will say is "buy it now".

Apparently it didn't do to well at the box office and if you watch the trailer on this disc you will see why(whoever came up with it should be ...).

Rating:
Summary: Cronenberg addresses some hot-button issues...
Review: ...which are ultimately more interesting in theory than execution with "Videodrome," a grisly, imaginative comment on television's influence over the public.

Max Renn (James Woods, who blends discomfort, confusion, and sleaze very well) is the president of Civic TV, an independent Canadian outfit that specializes in "everything from soft-core pornography to hard-core violence," and when he comes across a pirated satellite feed of a new program called "Videodrome" (just people being tortured and murdered), he can't take his eyes off it. Renn is matched in madness by Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry, of Blondie), a spacey, new-age radio personality with an appetite for physical pain. After a series of hallucinations and strange bodily transformations (stomachs develop vaginal openings to accept videotapes, of course), Renn is introduced to Barry Convex (Les Carlson, whose excellent, villainous performance is one of the movie's highlights), an eyeglass manufacturer who happens to be the mastermind--or at least ONE of the masterminds--behind the sinister "Videodrome" program.

There are a lot of positive aspects to be extracted from this movie, and being a huge fan of Cronenberg I was expecting to be as enthusiastic as everyone else about this one. But even after watching it countless times, "Videodrome"--while ingeniously crafted--still tends to leave me feeling shut out after it's all over. The movie simply isn't as involving as "The Dead Zone," "Shivers," or "eXistenZ," and I have no idea why. Cronenberg's specialty may be icy characters in strange predicaments, but this is the first instance where I was left cold by the proceedings.

On the positive side, "Videodrome" IS a bit of a sly satire on television that's still relevant today. How much viewing does it take before someone's reality becomes television (as one character asks)? It also shows--maybe subconsciously--the link between watching violence and having it carry over into reality (i.e.--Renn becomes a mind-controlled assassin for Videodrome). Cronenberg's script is stuffed with issues of social and political importance, so much that it takes a few viewings to completely observe his intentions (the mark of a good film).

But maybe the true stars of "Videodrome" are Rick Baker's rushed but efficient special effects, which present some of the most nauseatingly gory images ever committed to celluloid. The aforementioned vaginal openings, videotapes made from flesh, guns grafting themselves onto hands, and bodies turning themselves inside out are just a few things to look out for.

David Cronenberg is one of the most talented directors working today, and "Videodrome" IS a good movie, but--in my humble opinion--it's not the best he's put out.

Rating:
Summary: They use her image to seduce us...
Review: A cult favorite since its release in '83, VIDEODROME is in some ways a "great flawed film." The characters are far from sympathetic, the plot is often confusing and contradictory, and some of the dialogue is unintentionally hilarious. Yet on the level of images and ideas, VIDEODROME is a rich, compelling experience which will take root in your brain long after the film is over. James Woods turns in a terrific performance as Max Renn, sleazoid co-owner of a quickie TV station. For reasons which never become clear, Renn is chosen as the gateway for public transmission of the "Videodrome" TV signal, which hypnotizes its viewers and causes mind-altering hallucinations. Renn, always on the lookout for the ultimate trash with which to hook his slavish, sensation-seeking audience, is introduced to "Videodrome," a charming bit of snuff TV where men in masks torture women and a black man for no real reason at all, except for cheap thrills. Renn, correctly assuming that sex and violence sell to the masses, tries to discover the human face behind Videodrome. Along the way, he stumbles onto what seems to be a conspiracy to control the mind of the North American audience through TV (hmmm...hasn't this happened by now?), seemingly to create an audience of docile, consumeristic sheep. After a rather shocking sequence of events, Renn becomes one of the "New Flesh," apparently a race of humans who have evolved away from the body to exist entirely in the electronic realm (hmmm...isn't this happening right now?) and are trying to destroy Videodrome. His companion in this journey is masochistic Nicki Brand, played by Deborah Harry at her most glamorous. Nicki, turned onto Videodrome by Max, abandons her life as a "radio personality" and seems to become an entirely image-based being, first used by Videodrome to seduce Max, then somehow escaping and joining the "New Flesh." I know none of this makes much sense, but VIDEODROME has to be seen to be believed. Cronenberg's imagery, realized by FX genius Rick Baker, is incredibly sensual and powerful, using all the resources of the cinema to suggest multiple levels of reality and hallucination. I won't spoil the surprises for you by describing the effects here; let's just say that Cronenberg combines sex, violence, electronics and body/machine anxieties in a new and compelling way. Harry's incredible charisma and style lend the role of Nicki just the right touch of simultaneous allure and wierdness (she is first introduced as an image on a TV screen, and actually spends most of her time in the film in scenes where she is clearly a hyperreal hallucination instead of a person. She and Woods have a very believable chemistry and should have had more scenes together - the script for this film needed a few more drafts. I first saw this movie as a teen-ager, back before the Internet, virtual reality or cybersex existed, and developments in audio-visual technologies since then have only underscored the seriousness and ambition of Cronenberg's vision. Where do we end and our electronic prostheses begin? Is electronic experience more real than real? Is the television screen now truly "the retina of the mind's eye?" I think so. VIDEODROME will make you think of your own environment in a new way. Great late-night viewing!

Rating:
Summary: YYYYAAAAAAWWWWWWNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!
Review: The only reason this got one star instead of none was the fact that James Woods was in it (plus you can't rate items with less than one star...). I felt like turning it off after the first ten minutes because it was so boring, but I decided to give a try. I would rather have my time back then say I watched that dull bit of movie making. I can't believe any of you would call this a classic. It's a classic piece of boring trash, and thats about it. Besides Woods, the acting was terrible, the storyline mundane, and what little special effects there were did not really impress. But I guess some people need to cling to a movie that stinks like this, just so they can tell people they think its a classic.

Rating:
Summary: See This On Video Rather Than DVD
Review: Every time I see this movie, I expect it to make more sense, but for some reason it doesn't. In fact, I got slightly more confused the last time I watched. Debbie Harry does a great performance as a kinky talk-radio psychologist--she and Woods have great chemistry together, and it was too bad they didn't have more scenes together.

I would describe the plot of this movie, but I would probably sound like I was on some sort of mind-altering drugs. Actually, I'm pretty sure that narcotics were involved in some way in the making of this movie. I'm not saying that the people who made the movie were drug addicts, or didn't come up with the creative ideas on their own, but several scenes are just, well, very trippy.

James Woods plays a producer (I think) who is looking for something new and shocking, and he gets more when he bargained for when he stumbles across a pirate videotape of a 'show' called Videodrome. The footage looks realistic enough for him to suspect it may actually be snuff, so he starts to investigate further. Things just get weirder and weirder until no-one, including the viewer, is quite sure what's real.

This movie is really bizarre, even for David Cronenberg, but his movies are always really cool, original, and fascinating (with the exception of Crash, which I actually dozed off during). Rick Baker's FX are great, there's all kinds of funky bio-mechanical stuff going on, and a few extraordinarily gruesome scenes. I wish he would direct more movies like this. A really good rent, and you'll be putting down the videotape very fast after you take it out of the VCR. This is one you'll want to watch on video, if at all possible. You'll see why.

Not for the narrowminded.

Rating:
Summary: Hallucinations or reality?
Review: This is a strange movie dealing with a mysterious cable signal that gives viewers uncanny hallucinations. James Woods is a cable station operator who investigates the source of the signal and eventually succumbs to it's effects. Lots of slimy special effects including a man who turns inside out after being shot and a pistol that fuses to Woods's hand. Some viewers may be offended by scenes of female torture and bondage so beware. Overall, a highly enjoyable and yet somewhat confusing film from the great master of biological horror.

Rating:
Summary: BRAVEST FILM OF THE LAST THIRTY YEARS
Review: Videodrome is one of the most important films ever made and David Cronenberg is the most socially relevent director of the last thirty-five years.

Cronenberg's ideas and imagry can be unsettling, to be sure, but then technology is unsettling. It is altering us in ways we cannot even begin to understand. Videodrome taps into some of these notions.

Consider that Videodrome was made in about 82 or 83, when video was very new. No other filmmaker has offered such an incisive commentary, before or since, on television violence, not being able to "take your eyes off the screen" as James Woods says in the movie, and on the coming global village, as predicted by Marshall Macluhan (sp?).

The images in this film are revolutionary. And with the advent of reality shows like American High and Big Brother and Real TV and (less recently) the real world, this film becomes all the more relevent.

Why can't we take our eyes off the screen? Why are we driven to watch rather than to live in the real world?

These are the questions posed by Cronenberg.

Make no mistake, this film is not for everyone. Many will find it unremittingly dour and disgusting. My girlfriend despised it with a passion.

But for those willing, Videodrome is a valuable film.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This brutal Cronenburg film began with an intriguing story. The hallucinating effects are brilliant, as is James Woods performance. But as the story unfolds it becomes boring, trivial, and lost. For a good Cronenburg film, check out Naked Lunch or Crash. As for a James Woods performance, any will do. His acting is never anything less than superior.

Rating:
Summary: TV KILLERS
Review: David Cronenberg's imaginary world is full of mutilated bodies, of iron animals trying to penetrate human flesh or of mad scientists dreaming of impossible metamorphoses. It's a world you have to accept first in order to enjoy the movies of this canadian director. If you don't, you'd better skip the four or five Cronenberg's DVD actually available.

VIDEODROME is a very ambitious movie about mass manipulation through television images. It describes the ineluctable fall of James Woods, a TV station headman, whose occupation is to find the most vulgar shows on earth susceptible to please the audience. He will be trapped in hallucinative nightmares when discovering the VIDEODROME show.

I think that the horror scenes are not as well integrated in the action as they will be in DEAD RINGERS a few years later. So the movie is hybrid, half horror movie half social and political pamphlet.

The image is full of white spots (How ironical !) but the audio OK.

A digestible DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Bizarre and unforgettable
Review: I am not a particular fan of David Cronenberg, or of horror films for that matter, but Videodrome is so bizarre, so oddly disturbing and yet compelling that it's one of the few films I can watch every year and still find fresh.

The plot is confused, the characters seemingly unmotivated. There's a Marshall McLuhan-esque character who exists only on videotape, a TV programmer without scruples who finds his brain has been permanantly altered by watching what he thought was snuff porn, and a woman who sacrifices herself for him- for reasons we cannot fathom.

I'm still not sure why it's so complelling- and yet it is.