David Cronenberg is a bit of an oddity. I also watched a Guy Maddin film recently, so perhaps it's something the Canadians are putting in their water. But, as a film buff, please keep on drinking! 'Videodrome (1983)' purports to explore the future of television – in which, owing to the brain's inability to discern TV images from reality, the television itself essentially becomes an extension of the human body. Cathode tube radiation forms a new organ in the brain, fuelling the creation of new realities; hardware and human tissue grotesquely combine to form a "new flesh." James Woods grows a vagina in his abdomen, into which videotapes can be inserted. No, you didn't misread that. Cronenberg is probably the king of the "body horror" sub-genre, in which the abjectness of the human body is brought to the fore, often using very impressive and realistic visual effects (another example in Cronenberg's repertoire is 'The Fly (1986),' with everybody's favourite guy, Jeff Goldblum). 'Videodrome' blurs the line between illusion and reality, between human and machine, between bad taste and high art. There's something compelling about this, but I wouldn't recommend it as a date movie.
Review of Videodrome
