Cinema
Videodrome
David Cronenberg · 1983
Synopsis
Toronto. Max Renn runs a small television channel that lives off sex and violence. Harlan, his technician, picks up a pirate signal with a clandestine satellite dish: Videodrome, a programme in which people are tortured, apparently for real, in a red room, and which is said to come from Malaysia. Max wants it. He looks for its origin, meets Nicki Brand, a radio host who loves pain, and crosses paths with Brian O'Blivion, a prophet of the media who appears only on screens. Then the hallucinations begin, and his body starts to change.
Context
Universal, which had paid for half of it, released the film in February 1983 in six hundred North American theatres; it was first in Variety's chart in its first week, then quickly disappeared, with 2.1 million dollars in takings against a budget of 5.9 million. The studio cut it beyond what the censors required. The effects are by Rick Baker, who had just received the first Oscar for make-up, for a werewolf film.
Who it is for
Less than an hour and a half, with difficult scenes of mutilation and sex; the story comes unhinged halfway through, and that is the point.
Prizes and reception
Genie Award for Best Direction; a failure on its release, it has become a cult film.
Sources for this page 15
The pages consulted to check this page.