Starring James Woods and Deborah Harry.
There is a feeling of this film being set in an alternate 1980's. The 1980's saw the boom of both cable television and the VCR. James Woods plays Max Renn, the president of a sleazy cable channel that goes out of his way to find sensational programing for his viewers. Via his video bootlegging buddy, he stumbles upon a snuff channel that depicts people being whipped, beaten, electricuted, and murdered. This is Videodrome. Believing it to merely a tv show, he seeks out the makers of this program in order to get a deal. Along the way, he introduces his new lover, Debby Harry, to the world of Videodrome and she quickly becomes obsessed with it, even pretending to go on a work assignment just to try to get on the show. Unkown to either of them is that the Videodrome is more than they ever imagined.
This is a difficult film to describe. It swims deep in the "dream within a dream" realm, fantasy versus reality lines of story telling. There are many themes brought up in this sci:fi distopia; portrayel of violence and sexuality in the media, man vs. human nature, man vs. technology, mans perception of relaity. I know there are more themes intertwined in this labrynthian film, some of which i recognize, but some I know I'm not intelligent enough to understand.
Having seen the Criterion DVD before, which looked awesome, I'm slightly disappointed in the Blu Ray transfer. It looks better than the DVD, but not as good as some of the Blu Ray transfers I've seen of films from the 30's. It's got the same features as the DVD, which is, as always good stuff from Criterion.
Suggested for??
If you like your brain being fucked with and bizarre, sometimes disturbing visuals, this is for you.
i watched it, so you don't have to.
(i'm still working on a closing tagline.)
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