Videodrome
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Movie Reviews of Videodrome
Movie Review: Long Live the New Flesh! SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW!
Summary: 5 Stars
For all of you rare people that are unfamiliar with David Croenberg, he is the maker of the new A History of Violence. This is one of his most famous movies and rightfully so. It is a masterpiece, a visionary experience from 1983.
Even though it came then, it has absolutely unbelievable special effects. The special effects notably found in the hallucination sequences are magnificent and stunning.
This is James Wood's best movie who gives a good performance playing, Max, the owner of channel 83, hard core stuff. He's trying to make a living but still is a pervert. He's into this nasty stuff he finds. Yet comically enough he says that he stays away from the bad stuff.
He is a perverted man, and he has a bizarre relationship with his girlfriend. When he and his partner are trying to pick up stations, they come across a torture station, very realistic and disturbing. Max becomes more and more interested in it until he finds out horrible secrets behind it. He realizes that this trully is "real". And sick. This program called Videodrome has a spell on him and causes him to hallcinate in very original and very well made sequences. He will literally enter inside his TV or his flesh will just open up.
This is when the creators of the program start to program him. And make him do very bad things. But can Max overcome this posessing power. The fact is that the TV, and this program is posessing him and changing him.
The movie combines lots of "fantasy" elements along with science fiction and is definitely out of the ordinary. It is hard to understand at times and very creative. The fact is that this movie, this crazy story is masking, implying that the real world is a very bad world. It's showing the new arrival of horrific TV programs and it shows the horrifying spell TV has on its watchers. Don't belive me? Where do you think a lot of the influences for crimes come from? Sawing people up in GTA!
And that is the genius of this movie. This movie is in all fairness a critique of thesociety but it does it in such a cool and creative way that it's hard not to love it.
Videodrome is a piece of genius, Croenberg's best, and one of my favorite movies. It is brilliant, disturbing and creepy. The world we live in is trully a scary place and this movie shows that. The visual effects are jaw dropping (1983! No Way!).
It is a masterpiece, a chilling tale, a true tale, a fascinating tale. It's so creative and the hallucinations will have you fully engaged. They are surreal! Croenberg (writer + director of this movie) is definitely a very creative man and I applaud him and praise this masterpiece.
Movie Review: Soon, we will all have "special names"
Summary: 5 Stars
The idea of people being brainwashed into drones just by watching television is a very serious and scary idea. Mostly because I'm in front of it a lot.
After watching this I thought that this was a very Cronenberg film. The ever-returning theme of humans integrating with machinery is very much presented here by James Woods' character blending in with his hallucinations and becoming the new technology everybody must be afraid of. The gun mutating with his arm is the obvious example of this. This is all done with a lot of gore and slime, and this is regrettably what the movie's undoing is.
The acting is very good; James Woods delivers one of his best performances ever. I can not really think of a much better performance from him (maybe Hades in Hercules). Deborah Harry was far better then I expected her to be, her performance gave a very erotic feel to the first two acts, but her character regrettably got lost in the last part. The rest of the cast was fairly unknown to me, but they delivered a good enough effort considering the material they were presenting.
In the third act Cronenberg has to wrap this intriguing premise up in a satisfying way and resorts into gore and violence (expertly executed by Rick Baker) and ultimately fails in conveying his message clearly to the audience. He should have kept the gore in the background and the characters in the foreground. The double ending was well thought of by the way.
The next thing I was worried about is the dating of the movie. The subject of videotaping and watching TV seems to feel less important now in these days of the information age. Computers have taken over the supremacy from the TV when it comes to information-distribution. The internet is omnipresent. A remake should be made of this movie every twenty or so years to keep it fresh.......gosh did I just say that I am so going to hear this later on. On the other hand: there is of course Ghost in the Shell (1995) which tells a very similar story, only in reverse. A virtual entity wants to become one with the original technology, that of the human body. When you look at this in total, I think this can not be counted with the better movies made by Cronenberg, such as The Fly (1986) and the Dead Zone. "Videodrome" is one of Cronenberg's finest films. It's sick, twisted, and superb.
Movie Review: Thoughtful movie about a horrifying idea
Summary: 5 Stars
So few films contain actual ideas these days, people tend to overreact to the ones that do. Videodrome is a dark, deliberately disgusting film that uses its ability to shock and revolt in the service of its ideas. Namely, it is not television that is evil, but our need to be stimulated, especially by violent sexual imagery. Maxx Renn finds himself in the grip of truly evil men because of his fascination with a pirate TV broadcast depicting a naked woman being tortured. He likes it so much he tries to acquire it for his fladgeling cable network. The men controlling the broadcast have embedded a subliminal trigger within the tv signal, that makes people hallucinate and highly succeptible to suggestion. Renn's purchase of the program would place it in the homes of thousands of people who would find its content entertaining, making them unwitting agents of the wishes of these monsters. Cronenberg seems to be saying that our willingness to be stimulated by violent sexual imagery is what makes mass communications dangerous, not the medium itself. It is his willingness to address the idea that Americans find violence sexually arousing that makes this film compelling. It's not a nice thing to say to people who consume movies like they were ice cream. It is true, however, and Cronenberg makes his point with memorable, disturbing imagery.Movie Review: Videodrome - It's Watching you!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
David Cronenberg is obsessed with technology and body modification - especially how all of this equates to sex and death. How do things CHANGE us? VIDEODROME is probably one of his most blatant statements about television, and the dangers of being more than a voyeur. There is a danger lurking in every scene of this movie, and even the sex scenes take on a disturbing horror vibe. Graphic and disturbing? Yes. But also very thought-provoking, and well-done. The DVD lets you see the movie in its widescreen unedited gory glory. Also included is a very disorienting trailer that was produced on a COMMODORE 64! The performances are outstanding including James Woods at his most likeable, and Debbie Harry as a distant emotionally cold woman who is turned on by the atrocity that is VIDEODROME. The plot centers on Woods as a slimey cable producer looking for hardcore programming to launch his cable channel. He stumbles across a show called VIDEODROME that is pure sex and torture to the point of death. Is it real? Where is it coming from? And why does everyone who watches it become a part of it? EXIStENZ is VIDEODROME's bookend - the gaming side of this theme.Movie Review: The Horrors Of Television...
Summary: 5 Stars
Max Renn (James Woods) is a small-time cable station operator (channel 83) who stumbles onto something big. In his quest for ever more bizarre / shocking programming, he is introduced to a "show" called VIDEODROME (aka: video circus or arena) that appears to be the real deal- snuff television! Though he believes the violence to be fake, Max is intrigued and mystified by the sadism and total lack of plot. He feels that videodrome could be the next big thing that hits the airwaves! Alas, he soon finds out that the video he's been watching is having a strange effect on / in his mind. Max begins hallucinating to the point where reality becomes a cloudy grey area. His masochistic girlfriend Nicki (Deborah Harry) disappears into the videodrome world, never to be seen again except via television. Max discovers that a nefarious government organization is behind videodrome and plans on using it to create a whole new society. Can they be stopped before we become a nation of killer-couch potatoes? Watch and see! David Cronenberg (Scanners, The Brood) weaves yet another web of terror for us to get caught up in. This is one of my favorites. Highly recommended...