Videodrome, by David Cronenberg - feature film

Videodrome revolves around cable television operator Max Renn (James Woods) who is constantly looking for even more challenging and controversial material. When his sidekick Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) shows a recording of the snuff transmitter Videodrome, Renn's world view begins to rapidly shift. Terrible hallucinations plague his brain. Searching for the how and why of this physical decline, he discovers the programs of television guru Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), who explains that the show gave him a brain tumor. But it could be worse. The big evil genius behind Videodrome, the eel-smooth Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson), begins programming Renn with live videos, which he inserts into a body orifice in his stomach. For Renn, who mutates into a killing machine, there seems to be no turning back.

Almost forty years after its release, Videodrome is still a disturbing viewing experience. David Cronenberg's so-called "body horror" produces scenes like the one in which Renn's hand fuses with a meaty gun and the one in which Convex is literally turned inside out in a grotesque scene. These events or hallucinations, that remains perpetually uncertain, seem to be the consequences of the destructive power of Videodrome broadcasts, which are meant to make weak America stronger as "the rest of the world gets tougher and tougher."

Videodrome gained cult status soon after its release due to Cronenberg's innovative vision of mass media and the intertwining of body and technology; it has since been called a prophetic film, as the director seemed to predict as early as 1983 how obsessed people would become with Internet technology. Thus Oblivion argues the obviousness of choosing another name for your screen presence and the inevitability that living on a screen (then the TV) will come to dominate physical life. And the fusion between body and technology does not take such a physical form as in Videodrome, but as a metaphor it all comes very close to the reality of today.

This film can be attended with a day ticket or festival passe-partout, or with a film ticket, to be booked through the film agenda of LantarenVenster.