Videodrome (1983)

In writer/director David Cronenberg's terrorizing and shocking hallucinatory tale of erotic sci-fi and "body horror" - the disorienting thriller film's theme was the prophetic prediction that TV would replace 'real-life', as corporate conspirators in a nightmarish cult fought for control over reality. The controllers of media culture wanted to entice and manipulate the docile, consumer-oriented masses by marathon television watching (to distance viewers from reality) that eventually would cause utter control, dependence and human mutation; the film's themes were kinky sexuality, a right-wing mind-control conspiracy, extreme S&M sex games and orgiastic mutilation, body transformations, and over-stimulating, reality-manipulating TV. The film was extremely prescient, predicting the rise of immersive VR (virtual reality), user-involving video-games, the rise of 3-D, and the ubiquitous use of mobile devices.

The film's MacGuffin - or "Brown Note" - was an inherently evil snuff film videotape known as "Videodrome" - pure sensory video input created and designed to have a profound, corrupting and harmful effect upon anyone who viewed it. In this narrative's case, the viewing of the tape caused obsessive behavior (a continued search for more extreme sensory input through hard-core sexual or violent TV shows with sexual abuse, torture and murder), desensitization and a numbing effect, hallucinatory and delusionary images, physical deformities and tumors, and ultimately psychological insanity.

Cronenberg's previous horror-sci-fi films included Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977), The Brood (1979), and Scanners (1981). Videodrome was Cronenberg's first film distributed by a major Hollywood studio, MCA/Universal, but it was met with confusion, revulsion, and perplexed reactions by traditional audiences, until it found its niche amongst cult film aficionados during its video release (an ironic development!).

On a budget of almost $6 million, the unusual, daring and highly-original cult film only grossed $2.1 million. In addition to its tagline: "First it controls your mind," it promoted a memorable phrase: "Long live the new flesh," contained many symbolic images of sexuality, and promoted the prophetic idea that violence on television organically changed people and their behavior.

• during the title credits, the appearance of the film's title VIDEODROME was briefly distorted by white-noise or static, and the buzzing of the TV's cathode ray tube
• in his apartment, the main character Max Renn (James Woods) was provided with a recorded "wake-up call" by his female assistant, confidante, and 'Girl Friday' Bridey (Julie Khaner), who told her boss Max that he wasn't dreaming; she regularly recorded daily wake-up calls on video-tape to keep him updated and functioning on-time
• Bridey's 'wake-up' call (video) appeared on Max's TV monitor to remind him of his early appointment that day with Hiroshima Video clients at the Classic Hotel; Max was the sleazy, jaded owner-director-producer of an X-rated, adult-entertainment Toronto cable TV station (CIVIC TV, Channel 83, Cable 12 on the UHF dial), that normally aired sensationalist programs or shows, including soft-core pornography and trashy, violent content
• Max was increasingly bored with the content of the cable-TV shows in the current schedule, and was looking for new content; Renn met with two potential Japanese salesmen (Harvey Chao and David Tsubouchi) from Hiroshima Video in a derelict hotel for a black-market purchase of their product - 13 episodes (cassettes) of an artful soft-core show titled "Samurai Dreams" featuring tasteful "Oriental sex" (a female pleasuring herself off-screen with an unveiled wooden phallus/dildo dressed as a doll); after previewing the show with his station's partners Moses (Reiner Schwarz) and Rafael or "Rafe" (David Bolt), Renn felt the Japanese video wasn't provocative enough and was just too "soft" - he wanted something more sensational and edgy: "I'm lookin' for something that'll break through, you know? Something tough"

Toronto Adult Entertainment Cable-TV Station

Advertisement for CIVIC TV - "The One You Take To Bed With You"

Max Renn (James Woods) - Director-Producer of CIVIC TV Cable Channel in Toronto

• in a run-down, secret CIVIC TV cellar lab of Renn's bootlegger-technician Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) who was working with a screwdriver between his teeth, Renn was shown a 53-second, international signal or broadcast that had been illegally intercepted (and recorded) by the station's pirate satellite dish on the roof-top; acc. to Harlan, the rogue private signal was thought to have originated in Malaysia; Harlan showed Max the short recording of an ultra-violent underground TV show called Videodrome (the reason for the film's title); the content of the show was a more subversive and depraved torture/snuff film (was it staged or real?) than the normal fare that Max's TV station aired; in the "grotesque" clip, a hapless female victim were held up to an electrified wall of clay during abusive torture by two hooded assailants
• Max showed a desire to locate the producers of "Videodrome" and broadcast the recorded, pirated VCR cassette of the show within his own regular line-up of programming

"The Rena King Show" - Guest Stars Max, Nicki (in a Prominent Red Dress), and Prof. O'Blivion

• the same afternoon, the "controversial president of Channel 83" Max was scheduled to appear on a TV talk show - "The Rena King Show", with the host (Lally Cadeau) and a panel of guests, including "radio personality" Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry) in a "stimulating" red dress, and technology cult leader, "media prophet" and pioneer Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley); O'Blivion stated how he would only appear in public via remote TV hook-ups
• when questioned, Max defended his station's airing of soft-core pornography and hard-core violence as a matter of economics: "In order to survive, we have to give people something they can't get anywhere else, and, uh, and we do that"; he defended his position as providing an escape valve for people: "A harmless outlet for their fantasies and their frustrations"; Nicki agreed that society was "overstimulated" - "We crave stimulation for its own sake. We gorge ourselves on it," and then admitted her own stimulated state: "I live in a highly excited state of overstimulation"
• Professor O'Blivion lectured about how the prevalence of TV had contributed to dehumanization and the oversatured, addictive take-over and corruption of real life with an overload and over-stimulation of sensory input (of erotic and violent TV shows):
  • "The television screen has become the retina of the mind's eye"
• afterwards, Max viewed more "sicko" pirated footage of the 'plotless' "Videodrome" show with Harlan, this time with an anonymous black male victim being whipped, tortured, and beaten before being killed in the same strange chamber; Max was amazed by the video, and intrigued that it had no defined characters, no plot, no dialogue, and only crude production values: "You can't take your eyes off it. It's incredibly realistic. Where do they get actors who can do this?... It's worth checking out"; Harlan had also determined by now that the show was actually emanating from Pittsburgh, PA
• Max continued to pursue Nicki Brand, a self-help therapist and C-RAM-radio guru-personality who hosted a show with an open-air crisis hotline for distressed and troubled callers (the "Emotional Rescue Show")
• after observing Nicki's studio show, during their first date at his place - the start of a torrid and bizarre S&M romance, she asked: "Got any porno?...Gets me in the mood"; she searched through his videos and selected his pirated tape of "Videodrome," and didn't balk when Max told her: "Torture, murder...ain't exactly sex"; she implied that she desired masochistic sadism as a sexual stimulant when she answered: "Say's who?"; she was fascinated by the display of gratuitous torture and punishment ("I can take it...I like it...Yeah, it turns me on") on the tape - also becoming a mesmerized victim of its harmful effects

Nicki Viewing "Videodrome" - a S&M Prelude to Sex: "Wanna try a few things?"

• she proposed that the sleazy Max take out his Swiss Army knife and cut her bare chest - he noticed straight-lined cuts already on her shoulder: ("Looks like somebody's beat me to it"); she even asked how to audition for a role on "Videodrome" -- "I wonder how you get to be a contestant on this show"; then she suggested: "Wanna try a few things?" implying her desire for masochistic sadism; they laid naked on a bed in front of the TV (as the cassette video 'Videodrome' voyeuristically played in the background); he pierced her earlobe with the sewing needle and a cork, bringing forth drops of blood before they had sex together, with Nicki's legs and torso entertwined with him
• the next day after arriving late in the office for work looking tired and suffering from a headache (the start of Max's major physical ailments), Renn met up with feminist pornographer Masha Borowski (Lynne Gorman) to view her latest Greek-themed soft-core video for the channel titled "Apollo and Dionysus," but he judged it as not very "contemporary," too naive and too sweet; he asked if she knew about the show "Videodrome," describing it as "just torture and murder...very realistic"; when she reacted repulsively, he remarked: "Better on TV than on the street"; she agreed to be hired to search for and track down "Videodrome's" producers, and suggested becoming his agent to create content for his "subterranean" market, possibly along the lines of "Videodrome"

Nicki's S & M: Self-Mutilating Cigarette Chest Branding

• that evening, Max's new lover Nicki announced to him how she was going away for two weeks on assignment - to Pittsburgh, to audition and appear on the "Videodrome" show to satisfy her S&M cravings: ("I was made for that show"); she flouted and ignored Max's strong objections to stay away: "Those mondo weirdo video guys, they've got unsavory connections"; in an act of self-mutilating protest to challenge Max, Nicki stubbed out Max's lighted cigarette on her left bare breast, leaving a burn mark that looked like a third nipple
• the next day, Renn (looking like he was hung-over) met up with Masha who had contacted the "subterranean grapevine" to research "Videodrome" - she warned about the tape's evil influence: "Videodrome is something for you to leave alone. It is definitely not for public consumption"; she described how it was the product of a "political" movement with a dangerous "philosophy" that included violent ends - real torture and death: ("It's not acting. It's snuff TV"); Max bribed her by offering to accept her "Apollo and Dionysus" show as part of her compensation, if she provided him with a name associated with "Videodrome" - she mentioned the cult leader Professor Brian O'Blivion
• Max entered the Cathode Ray Mission soup kitchen with a crowd of homeless for an 11:30 am meal, where the indigent were provided with shelter, clothing, and marathon sessions of TV watching, not food; the Mission's symbol was a red heart (with strands of barbed-wire wrapped around it) topped with a TV antenna
• in the Mission, Max noticed how the homeless were guided to cubicles set up with TV's for non-stop viewing; he met up with the soup kitchen's manager, Bianca O'Blivion (Sonja Smits), the tall daughter of Professor Brian O’Blivion; in her upstairs office, she mentioned how her father's mission was to provide the derelicts with rehabilitation ("doses of TV"), to reconnect with society by giving them what their diseased, shallow lives had been lacking - 24 hour access to television - to bring them back into the fold as media consumers :
  • "It's a disease forced on them by their lack of access to the cathode ray tube...Watching TV will help patch them back into the world's mixing board"
• Bianca explained how her father, who for the last 20 years had stopped conversing in person with people, would possibly send Max a cassette: ("The monologue is his preferred mode of discourse"); before leaving, Max mentioned how he wanted to speak to her father about the 'twisted' video - "Videodrome" ("He may want to have a conversation")
• shortly later in his apartment, after experiencing a flashback of voices (from previous conversations), Max unwrapped a gun concealed in brown-paper, and then began to experience hallucinations when Bridey arrived; she told him about how Nicki wasn't on "assignment," but had taken two weeks off; in Max's view, he slapped Bridey for reaching toward his "Videodrome" cassette - and for an instant, she changed into Nicki, but then it appeared he hadn't really hit her but was acting strangely
• Bridey hand-delivered a videocassette recording from O'Blivion's office for Max; he complained of being exhausted and in "a deep sleep" and possibly suffering from a rash (he scratched his stomach through his shirt) [Note: A picture in Max's apartment depicted Hitler on stilts wearing a ballerina outfit (with a swastika.]; after Bridey left, Max picked up the videocassette - and due to his hallucinations, it bulged outward and he dropped it
• [Note: Max was unaware that repeated exposure and viewing of Videodrome was causing him to become warped, seduced and hooked on it; his brain was becoming mind-controlled and infected, and was mutating and developing fatal tumors; as a result, he was experiencing many disturbing, mind-altering visions and sights.]
• in the film's most notable and shocking sequence, Max picked up the cassette and watched O'blivion's warnings about how "Videodrome" was a socio-political conflict being waged by corporate North America to take control of the minds of the people:
  • "The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena, the Videodrome. The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality and reality is less than television"
• on the tape, with a more personal note, O'Blivion suggested that due to watching "Videodrome," Max was now developing hallucinations caused by a brain tumor generated by the broadcast: "Your reality is already half video hallucination. If you're not careful, it will become total hallucination. You'll have to learn to live in a very strange new world"; as a black-clad assassin appeared behind O'Blivion (and tied down both of his arms to his chair), the Professor described his own affliction -- a brain tumor that caused visions and hallucinations: ("I could feel the visions coalesce and become flesh, uncontrollable flesh. But when they removed the tumor, it was called Videodrome); and then to Max's horror, the torturer strangled O'Blivion to death as he struggled to say: "I was the... I-I was Videodrome's first victim"

The Video Strangulation of O'Blivion: "I was Videodrome's first victim!"

O'Blivion's Executioner Revealed to Be Red-Haired Nicki

• the shocking tape revealed that the black-hooded executioner, once the hood was removed, was femme fatale Nicki Brand - his own 'girlfriend'; in the film's most stupendous moment, as she entreated him, her seductive red lips enlarged on his TV screen (the set itself began to undulate, bulge outward, obscenely pulsate, form engorged veins, and moan as if sexually-aroused); on the tape, she beckoned Max: "I want you, Max. You. Come to me. Come to Nicki. Come on. Don't make me wait. Please...I want you, Max. You. Come on. Come on. Come to me now. Come to Nicki. Don't keep me waiting. Please. Please"; he submissively fell to his knees and pushed his own lips into the enlarged and ballooning-out hallucinogenic TV screen image to kiss them -- a symbolic metaphor for oral sex (cunnilingus), as he was sucked into the glass monitor's image
• inside the Cathode Ray Mission, Max returned her father's videotape to Bianca, noting that it was biting and dangerous: "Exciting. Very lively. Careful. It bites... It changed my life"; Max admitted he was suffering from health issues (for example, headaches) and hallucinations, and realized they had occurred after he had first been exposed to and viewed the Videodrome film, obtained from a pirated satellite signal; she explained how a specific damaging Videodrome signal (even a test pattern) had been weaponized, to induce carcinogenic brain tumors in the viewer that would then trigger the visions, and that Max was just another "victim" like her father
• Bianca regretfully told Max that all that was left of her father was a library full of his recorded videocassettes; he had died on the operating table 11 months earlier; his only recent appearances were via videotape; he had been murdered by other malicious political forces behind Videodrome: "At the end he was convinced that public life on television was more real than private life in the flesh. He wasn't afraid to let his body die"; she handed Max four videocassettes to view of her father explaining "the Videodrome problem"
• shirtless Max watched one of the videos in his living room, as Dr. O'Blivion spoke about perceptions of reality: ("I think that massive doses of Videodrome signal will ultimately create a new outgrowth of the human brain, which will produce and control hallucination to the point that it will change human reality. After all, there is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there? You can see that, can't you?"); the merging of technology and human flesh included a vaginal-like slit or womb-wound orifice that suddenly opened in Max's lower abdomen; he realized he could insert his entire hand holding his gun into the gaping hole; however, once the slit closed, he realized his gun had disappeared into his body
• Max was contacted by phone to be taken by stretch limousine to speak to Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson) about Videodrome; Convex, the Chief of Special Programs for the Spectacular Optical Corporation, introduced himself on a videotape played during the drive; Convex described the corporation's scope of global production - it manufactured inexpensive eyeglasses for the Third World, missile guidance systems for NATO, and it produced the test transmissions of “Videodrome" - still in its beginning stages as a "giant hallucination machine"
• the limo stopped at a storefront for the optical company, with the motto: "Keeping an Eye on the World"; inside, Max tried on different pairs of glasses inside the optician store before meeting Convex in person; in a back room, Max was asked to try on an elaborate high-tech helmet-device to record his hallucinations, to study why Max - after viewing the Videodrome tape - still seemed to be functioning normally unlike other "test subjects" who had turned insane; Convex explained how Max would be exposed to a "little S&M" in the helmet to induce his hallucinations

Max Wearing a Hallucination-Inducing Helmet	Nikki Appeared in Max's Hallucination
Nicki on TV - Asking to Be Whipped by Max	Nicki Transformed Into Masha

• Max hallucinated that Nicki appeared to him, and handed him a black bullwhip as the room transformed into the Videodrome torture chamber; she encouraged Max: "What are you waiting for, lover? Let's perform. Let's open those neural floodgates"; a big TV set appeared in the middle of the room with Nicki shown chained to the wall as Max began to whip her and she moaned in sexual pain - but then Nicki's TV image transformed into Masha - now wearing Nicki's dress
• in the next scene, possibly indicating that Max had been dreaming everything, Max woke up in his apartment early in the morning, with a dead, bound and gagged Masha by his side under the bed covers; Max called Harlan to come over and take pictures of the deceased Masha, but once Harlan arrived, the bed was empty; Harlan asked: "Max, are you in some kind of drug warp? I've got friends who can help"; Max asked to meet Harlan in one hour in his cellar lab to watch the recording of the previous night's broadcast of "Videodrome," to see if he had been recorded on the tape
• in one of the film's major plot twists, Harlan revealed to Max: "There was no tape...Not last night, not ever"; Convex also entered the lab, as Harlan continued to describe his work and motivations for Spectacular Optical; the tapes were pre-recorded and he hadn't watched them or been affected by them:
  • "I was playing you tapes, Max. Prerecorded cassettes. "Videodrome" has never been transmitted on an open broadcast circuit....To get you involved. Expose you to the Videodrome signal"
• both Harlan and Convex explained that Spectacular Optical's malicious intentions were based on an ideological effort, in a period of "savage new times" - to cleanse and purify North America from undesirable social derelicts such as Max (and his "cesspool" station CIVIC TV) and the station's viewership:
  • "We're entering savage new times and we're going to have to be pure and direct, and strong if we're going to survive them."
• TV was to be used as a weapon or social regulator, to purge those who liked filthy "scum shows" (such as "Videodrome") on Max's "cesspool" station that featured murder and torture, by causing viewers who had become dependent on television to die with fatal brain tumors: "You're rotting us away from the inside. We intend to stop that rot"; Convex specifically described how Spectacular Optical Corp.'s objective was to seize and take over control of Renn's Channel 83 TV station, and to broadcast or transmit the popular "Videodrome" signal to their viewers: ("It can be a giant hallucination machine, and much much more!"); it was Spectacular's ultimate plan to take over the channel and broadcast Videodrome as part of a crypto-government conspiracy to morally and ideologically "purge" North America and produce fatal brain tumors in "lowlifes" fixated on extreme sex and violence
• Max didn't know that he had been deceived and used by the Spectacular Optical Corporation and Barry Convex to do their bidding, by having hired Harlan as a double-agent for over two years; Convex revealed even further manipulation of Max, by turning him into a programmable drone; as Convex held out a pulsating videotape cassette, he ordered: "I want you to open up, Max. Open up to me. I've got something I wanna play for you" - Max's shirt opened, revealing his abdominal gash, into which Convex inserted the cassette tape; Max had literally become an organic video-recorder who could be programmed to act; he could be both "raped" and "programmed" by forcefully inserting a videotape inside his body to program him, mold his behavior and "play" him
• Convex forcibly inserted the cassette and its programmatic instructions into Max, as he ordered Max to become an assassin - to take over Channel 83 and kill his partners:
  • "We want Channel 83, Max. Give it to us. Give us Channel 83. Kill your partners. Kill them. Kill your partners and give us Channel 83."
• Max fell to the floor and began crawling into the hallway, where as he listened to his orders, he reached into his belly's slit and removed his wet, slimy and glistening gun; it was connected by wires (functioning as mechanical sinews) to his hand; he proceeded into the TV station where he targeted and murdered his two managing partners in cold-blood with the bio-weapon fused to his hand; his next programmed target (for Spectacular) was Bianca at the Cathode Ray Mission: ("Kill Bianca O'Blivion. She knows too much. She can hurt us. Don't let her hurt us, Max. Kill her. Kill Bianca O'Blivion")
• after breaking into the mission through a side door-window, Max confronted Bianca; she already knew what his deadly tape-programmed mission was as an assassin: "And they want you to destroy whatever is left of Brian O'Blivion. They want you to destroy me"; Max briefly hesitated when she uncovered a TV screen playing "Videodrome" featuring Nicki's strangulation death scene along with others; Bianca explained:
  • "They killed her, Max. They killed Nicki Brand. She died on Videodrome. They used her image to seduce you but she was already dead. Don't back away. I stole it from them just for you to see. Videodrome is death"
• the cassette recording ended and the TV signal turned to white noise; a fleshy gun and hand emerged from the TV set and fired at Max before he could defend himself; Bianca commented: "That's better. So much better"; after Max fell to his knees, Bianca began to "deprogram" him - she inserted her own cassette tape 'program' into Max's belly slit to order him to reverse himself, become something "quite different", and seek revenge by killing the creators and manipulators of Videodrome:
  • "You've become the video word made flesh....And now that you are the video word made flesh, you know what you have to do. You'll turn against Videodrome. You'll use the weapons they've given you to destroy them. Death to Videodrome. Long live the new flesh"

Bianca and Max: "Death to Videodrome. Long live the new flesh"

• meanwhile, a TV announcer reported on 34 year-old Max Renn's lethal shooting of his two Channel 83 executives; Max followed his technical colleague (and double-agent) Harlan back into Spectacular Optical's optician shop, where in a back room, Max seemed to willingly let Harlan insert another pulsating, fleshy cassette into Max's abdomen; however, after he did so, Harlan began screaming when he was unable to withdraw his hand (the gash now served as a vagina dentata during non-consensual penetration); when he finally did remove it, his bloody hand was shaped into a ticking time-bomb, a literal hand-grenade; Max quipped: "See you in Pittsburgh," as the grenade exploded, killing Harlan and destroying the shop's outer wall

Harlan's Last Attempt to Insert Another Programmed Cassette Into Max's Abdomen - A Vagina Dentata

• Max then proceeded to find and murder Barry Convex on stage at the Spectacular Optical Trade Show at the Toronto Convention Centre, where the company was introducing its new spring line of products (Medici); Convex was speaking to the ballroom audience to describe the corporation's two themes based upon quotes from the famous Renaissance statesman and patron of the arts Lorenzo de Medici. "Love comes in at the eye," and "The eye is the window of the soul"
• Max shot Convex with his organic, fleshy gun that caused globular clumps of cancerous tumors to erupt from Convex' torso and skull; he waved his gun at the audience as he declared on the microphone: "Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!"

Max's Hand-Gun Pointed at Barry Convex

Max's Murder of Barry Convex at a Trade Show

Cancerous Tumors Erupted from Convex's Body

• in the conclusion, Max retreated to an abandoned Toronto harbor - a dock area with a locked chain entrance, where he boarded a "Condemned Vessel"; in a littered room where he sat on an old dirty mattress, Max began conversing with an image of Nicki who appeared on a television set (presumably in the afterlife - "I've learned that death is not the end. I can help you"); she promised to be his "guide" to help him find his "way around"; she urged him to leave his old flesh and go onward toward the "next phase" to become "new flesh," and take additional steps to totally destroy "Videodrome": "You've hurt them but you haven't destroyed them. To do that you have to go on to the next phase...You have to go all the way now. Total transformation"
• Max was convinced to ultimately take his own life to ensure the total and complete destruction of Videodrome; first, Nicki prompted him to kill himself (his "old flesh"), and come to her by showing him how; she had him watch a TV broadcast of himself blowing his own head open (as he pronounced: "Long live the new flesh"); the blast caused the TV set to explode with his bloody intestines propelled out of the broken screen

Max Watching Himself Commit Suicide

Max's Own Imitative Suicide

• then, the 'real' Max committed a symbolic, imitative suicide with his own organic hand-gun; as he pulled the trigger on his gun pointed toward his head, he proclaimed how he would become transcendent and reborn with "new flesh" - disconnected from the media continually manipulating him to think and see in certain ways; he declared: "Long live the new flesh," truly believing that he would be joining Nicki, his object of desire, in "Videodrome" (whether he would or not)