VIDEODROME

Max Renn is the president of CIVIC-TV, a Toronto UHF television station specializing in sensationalist programming. Harlan, the operator of CIVIC-TV's unauthorized satellite dish, shows Max Videodrome, a plotless show purportedly broadcast from Malaysia depicting victims being violently tortured and eventually murdered. Believing this to be the future of television, Max orders Harlan to begin recording the Videodrome broadcasts.

Nicki Brand, a sadomasochistic radio host who becomes sexually involved with Max, is aroused by an episode of Videodrome. Upon learning it is actually broadcast out of Pittsburgh, she goes to audition for the show but never returns. Max contacts Masha, a softcore pornographer, and asks her to help him investigate Videodrome. Masha informs Max that the footage is real and is in itself a philosophical movement, though Max remains skeptical, and that the enigmatic media theorist Brian O'Blivion knows about Videodrome.

Max tracks down O'Blivion to a homeless shelter where vagrants engage in marathon sessions of television viewing. He discovers that O'Blivion's daughter, Bianca, runs the mission, aiding her father's vision of a world where television replaces everyday life. Later, Max views a videotape of O'Blivion explaining that Videodrome is a socio-political battleground in which a war is being fought to control the minds of the people of North America. Max then hallucinates Nicki speaking directly to him, causing his television to undulate as he kisses the screen. Disturbed, Max returns to O'Blivion's shelter. Bianca tells him that Videodrome carries a broadcast signal that gives malignant brain tumors, which O'Blivion considers part of his vision, believing hallucinations are a higher form of reality. When O'Blivion found out it was to be used for malevolent purposes, he attempted to stop his partners, only to be killed by his own invention. In the year before his death, O'Blivion recorded thousands of videos, which now form the basis of his television appearances.

Later that night, Max hallucinates placing his handgun in a slit in his abdomen. He is contacted by Videodrome's producer, Barry Convex of the Spectacular Optical Corporation, an eyeglasses company that acts as a front for an arms company. Convex uses a device to record Max's hallucinations. Max envisions himself on the Videodrome set whipping Nicki, whose image then transforms into that of Masha. Max then wakes up at home to find Masha's corpse in his bed. He frantically calls Harlan to photograph the body as evidence, but, shortly after he arrives, her body is gone.

Wanting to see the latest Videodrome broadcast, Max meets Harlan at his studio. Harlan reveals that he has been working with Convex to recruit Max to their cause. They aim to end North America's cultural decay by using Videodrome to kill anyone too obsessed with sex and violence. Convex then inserts a brainwashing Betamax tape into Max's torso. Under Convex's influence, Max kills his partners at CIVIC-TV. He attempts to kill Bianca, who stops him by showing him a videotape of Nicki's murder on the Videodrome set. Bianca then "reprograms" Max to her father's cause: "Death to Videodrome. Long live the new flesh." Under her orders, he kills Harlan, who inserts his hand into Max's torso slit, causing it to transform into a stielhandgranate and then explode; and Convex, whose body erupts into massive tumors and tears itself apart after Max shoots him with a gun fused to his hand.

Now wanted for murder, Max takes refuge on a derelict boat in the Port Lands. Appearing to him on television, Nicki tells him he has weakened Videodrome, but to defeat it, he must "leave the old flesh" and ascend to the next level. The television shows an image of Max shooting himself in the head, which causes the set to explode. Reenacting what he has just seen, Max utters the words "Long live the new flesh" and shoots himself.

Max Renn ultimately succumbs to the influence of Videodrome, embracing its hallucinations and following the path it sets for him.

The ending blurs the line between reality and hallucination, with Max's final actions reflecting both a surrender and a transformation shaped by the Videodrome signal. The film closes on an ambiguous note, leaving viewers questioning the boundaries between media, self, and the nature of control—a perfect capstone to Cronenberg's vision of body horror and media manipulation.