Videodrome (1983)

“Television is reality. And reality... is less than television."

This is my first really early film by David Cronenberg, I've actually seen four of his films before, but this is the first of the early ones that made his reputation. And... wow.

This is a layered, fascinating film with a subtext which is, yes, about what we in the UK called video nasties (aren't moral panics delightful?), with Max's hallucinations an obvious metaphor for the allegedly dehumanising effect of screen sex and violence. But there's no didacticism, no moralising, and plenty of playfulness.

James Woods, he of Family Guy and Trump-loving fame, is excellent of the amoral Max who is always looking for more and more extreme sexual and violent content for his television station. He meets the very kinky Nicky, who loves whips, chains and more, and at first there's a heavy whiff of transgressive eroticism that reminds me of Cronenberg's later Crash. But no; that's just the starter, superbly and alluringly sexual though Debbie Harry is. I wish she'd done some more acting; she's good at it.

But the fourth wall here is never very solid, and the torture and death footage of "Videodrome" induces hallucination and, in the end, disturbing body horror of the type Cronenberg is almost synonymous for. It all makes strong sense in terms of theme, narrative and story beats but, of course, doesn't do anything so pedestrian as to make sense in terms of plot. It's an extraordinary film that not only looks early '80s but explores the anxieties of the age- many of which are still with us, such as the effect of porn on sex. It may not literally be cyberspace but seems to come very much from the same zeitgeist as William Gibson's Neuromancer the following year, a novel I really do need to read again.

An extraordinary, important film which has so much more to say than I will have noticed on just this viewing. Cronenberg is one of the select few filmmakers among the very greatest.