Videodrome: A Review

27th December, 2018

Between you and me … ?



Life … 🎶 is the name of the game … ♬ … 

No, stop singing, Paul, you’ll put people off!

At any rate … 

Life gives you a very small budget, sometimes.

And forces you to rely not Netflix: but whatever you have in your back catalogue.

Something I know I’ve been doing over the past few weeks.

As you might have guessed … ?



My collection’s, extensive, ever changing and has the odd film in it.

Tonight … ?

Tonight saw me watching another movie.



One I’d seen in my collection, last night, and was thinking I should look at: until The Invasion of The Bodysnatchers demanded I watch it.

Yes … 

You’ve worked it out from the poster, haven’t you?

I watched 1983, David Cronenberg film, Videodrome … 

~≈¥≈~

Videodrome … introduces up to Max Renn (James Wood), the director of a small cable TV station called Civic TV: one that keeps itself in business airing softcore porn, and graphic violence.

Which Max admits — in a TV interview — is what keeps the station financially afloat.

However, in a meeting with Harlan (Peter Dvorsky), the man responsible for finding Civic’s more extreme content?

Is when Max get’s told about Videodrome: a series of snuff TV broadcasts, seemingly broadcast from Malaysia.

Max is interested.

But also worried when his girlfriend, Niki (Debbie Harry) admits to wanting to audition for the thing.

What is a body to do?   Except try and find out if the thing is safe … ?



Safe … 

Is only relative … 

Especially, as Max finds out, when reality is starting to get a bit … bendy …

~≈¥≈~

Now …

“Good, bad or indifferent, Paul?”, I hear you ask.

I’d say good, actually.

Although, if you asked me what was so good about it?

I’m not so sure I could put my fingers on it

.

Its competently acted: although Debbie Harry is possibly a better singer than actress, she does well enough.

It’s well written: with a twisty plot that’s somewhere between Gibson’s Neuromancer and Cronenberg’s own Scanners … with a tone that owes more to Gibson.

What’s more, the effects … ?

Are quite something: especially when the gun Woods uses melds into his hand.

Overall … ?



I think what’s caught my attention is that tone.

It’s very hard to describe the tone … 

But imagine, if you will, wiping the dirt off of a TV screen: only to find you’ve ALSO wiped away the programme you were expecting to see … only to find an unexpected corpse, underneath.

That’s Videodrome …

It’s practically unique …

Videodrome
★★★☆