Videodrome

Review

Since starting to get more invested into horror movies, both watching, learning about, and analyzing, the name Videodrome started to sprout up in surprising places. Despite never hearing about it before my increased interest, Videodrome was everywhere and David Cronenberg, it’s director, was lauded as one of the best in the business, and I come to you to say that the hype was real. Now that’s not to say that this is the best movie ever but it’s pretty damn good.

Videodrome is a movie about a TV channel that hosts soft-core porn and violence and it’s owner, Max. When Max stumbles across a video of seemingly real torture, he’s entranced, and despite being warned away from it he follows the lead trying to figure out what ‘Videodrome’ is. Max begins having hallucinations as a result of the brain tumor that ‘Videodrome’ grew in his brain but he also creates a connection between himself and the video world. Even though the creators of ‘Videodrome’ try to turn him into a weapon for them due to his connection to the video world, he breaks out from their control and hunts them down. The movie ends with Max killing himself in order to embrace ‘the new flesh’ so that he can continue to try to take down ‘Videodrome’.

First things first, the first 20 minutes of the movie are by far the worst, they’re significantly different from the rest of the movie. Max is kind of a dick in the first 20 minutes, there is like an unbalanced amount of nudity within the beginning of the film, and things are super slow moving. I’m happy to report that the rest of the movie, these issues are nonexistent.

Alrighty onto the good things, I loved Max, first twenty minutes of the movie not withstanding, he really is like a stray cat left out in the rain missing an ear. He’s so lost and confused for most of the movie, he just misses Nicki and wants his chest hole to stop opening. On top of Max, all most of the side characters are delightful as well, with the exception of the dude who sold glasses. I really loved Masha who is just a delightful old woman who makes soft-core porn and has connections to the underground market.

The story is pretty confusing and hard to follow considering Videodrome plants a tumor in someone’s head and gives them a connection to the ‘video world’ but honestly it’s a pretty fun ride despite being somewhat confusing.

The effects in this movie were absolutely amazing. They were so gross and so wet and I wish horror was half as wet these days because it gives me such a gross reaction and I love it! Max’s hand is so nasty and that’s not even to mention his vagina-like chest hole. The TV exploding with guts was also so cool despite being a bit too bright red.

Overall, this movie was a trip but a really fun one. What other movie can you watch a guy make-out with a TV?? That’s what I thought. This feels like a really good movie to put on as the background of a party so that people can turn their heads and say, ‘what the fuck is going on in that movie?’ or ‘what the hell are we watching?’