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Videodrome (1983)

tomatometer

80

Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 44
Fresh: 35 | Rotten: 9

Visually audacious, disorienting, and just plain weird, Videodrome's musings on technology, entertainment, and politics still feel fresh today.

No Score Yet...

Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 0

Visually audacious, disorienting, and just plain weird, Videodrome's musings on technology, entertainment, and politics still feel fresh today.

audience

79

liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 37,325

My Rating

Movie Info

Hardcore pornography, sadomasochism, mind control, and living televisions all play crucial roles in Videodrome, one of director David Cronenberg's explorations of dangerous sexuality and technological obsession. The morally questionable hero of the tale is one Max Renn (James Woods), a television executive searching for an intense new program for his sex-oriented network. He ultimately discovers an underground program called "Videodrome," which appears to broadcast pornographic snuff films of

Unrated, 1 hr. 29 min.

Science Fiction & Fantasy, Horror

David Cronenberg

Sep 8, 1998

Cast

All Critics (45) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (9) | DVD (20)

Film is dotted with video jargon and ideology which proves more fascinating than distancing. And Cronenberg amplifies the freaky situation with a series of stunning visual effects.

June 6, 2007 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Never coherent and frequently pretentious, the film remains an audacious attempt to place obsessive personal images before a popular audience -- a kind of Kenneth Anger version of Star Wars.

June 6, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comments (2)
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Though Videodrome finally grows grotesque and a little confused, it begins very well and sustains its cleverness for a long while.

August 30, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Simultaneously sleazy and cerebral, it's a film whose surrealist setpieces burn a brand on the brain.

January 3, 2012 Full Review Source: SFX Magazine | Comment
SFX Magazine

...an intriguing, deeply interesting film that over the course of almost three decades has acquired a prescient quality, but it's also schlock; a kind of cyberpunk rewrite of Network that indulges Cronenberg's taste for venereal horror.

January 16, 2011 Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | Comment
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

There's little denying that Cronenberg was way ahead of his time with much of Videodrome.

January 9, 2011 Full Review Source: FEARnet | Comment
FEARnet

Long Live the New Flesh!!!

December 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

... Videodrome is as contemporary and relevant as ever.

October 30, 2008 Full Review Source: Seanax.com | Comment
Seanax.com

[I]t stands out as one of Cronenberg's very best.

June 19, 2008 Full Review Source: ESplatter | Comment
ESplatter

David Cronenberg's most visionary and audacious film up to the time of its making, Videodrome is a fascinating rumination on humanity, technology, entertainment, sex, and politics that is virtually incomprehensible on first viewing.

June 6, 2007 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Veers from being risible to sinister as it explores how viewers are brainwashed by TV.

March 3, 2007 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment (1)
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Videodrome is arguably one of Cronenberg's best horror films, and it holds up brilliantly.

July 12, 2006 Full Review Source: About.com | Comment
About.com

There are distinct signs of strain in the plot convolutions, not least in the spectator's loss of faith over indiscriminate and cheating use of hallucination; what certainly survives is Cronenberg's wholesale disgust with the world in general.

January 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

The director captures the worst-case scenario of what might happen at the dawn of the video era, going all the way back to our parents' warning us not to sit too close to the television.

September 26, 2005 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

Underbaked, but you can't argue with its otherworldly aura. One disappointment: we don't get to see the belly-slit sex organs Baker designed for the never-used orgy finale.

March 9, 2005 Full Review Source: Seattle Weekly | Comment (1)
Seattle Weekly
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Videodrome

A well-paced, competently acted study on society's obsession with violence and sex on television, and what if catharsis was released on a more physical front, and the results that follow. David Cronenberg, the master of body horror, churns out another successful, memorable film, thanks mostly to the surreal-like

November 2, 2007
Dan Schultz

Super Reviewer

I'm not usually into this kind of cinematic filth, but this was almost tolerable.

December 12, 2008
aSpaceCowboy
John Hein

Super Reviewer

    1. Max Renn: Long live the new flesh.
    – Submitted by Bruce B (19 days ago)
    1. Max Renn: I'm looking for something... tough.
    – Submitted by Tim R (2 months ago)

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Latest News for Videodrome

April 27, 2009:
Uni Preps New Videodrome
Universal has announced plans to remake David Cronenberg's "Videodrome," with Ehren Kruger set to...

March 1, 2007:
"Saw" Maker to Tackle "Scanners" Remake
Darren Lynn Bousman, director of "Saw 2," "Saw 3," and the upcoming "Saw...

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