I went into Videodrome with both anticipation and some amount of apprehension, as I have some Cronenberg films I love, but I’m also not really into body horror that much (though my favorite Cronenberg is eXistenZ, and it definitely delves into some of the same territory as Videodrome). And the first thirty minutes or so were kind of rough going, between the literal torture porn that Max, our TV producer lead character, tries to get for his extreme network and the rough sex he has with Nicki Brand (Debbie Harry – very fun to see her in a movie, as I’m a big Blondie fan). If Max hadn’t come across a VERY intriguing conspiracy surrounding Videodrome right about that time, I would’ve been very tempted to quit.
I’m glad I didn’t, as all the mystery surrounding Videodrome (once we stopped actually watching clips from the torture porn show cover) was really interesting – hidden subliminal messages that alter reality for anyone who hears it. From that point on, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell what’s real and what’s hallucination for Max, which is kind of good and bad, actually.
