Sonja Smits

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 apparently being broadcast from Malaysia which depicts anonymous victims being violently tortured and eventually murdered. Believing this to be the future of television, Max orders Harlan to begin unlicensed use of the show. Nicki Brand, a sadomasochistic radio host who becomes sexually involved with Max, is aroused by an episode of Videodrome, and goes to audition for the show when she learns that it is being broadcast out of Pittsburgh, but never returns. Max contacts Masha, a softcore pornographer, and asks her to help him find out the truth about Videodrome. Through Masha, Max learns that not only is the footage not faked, but it is the public "face" of a political movement. Masha further informs him that the enigmatic media theorist Brian O'Blivion knows about Videodrome. Max tracks down O'Blivion to a homeless shelter where vagrants are encouraged to engage in marathon sessions of television viewing. He discovers that O'Blivion's daughter Bianca runs the mission, intending to help realize her father's vision of a world in which television replaces every aspect of everyday life. Later, Max views a videotape in which O'Blivion informs him that Videodrome is a socio-political battleground in which a war is being fought to control the minds of the people of North America before being garrotted by Nicki; Max then hallucinates that Nicki speaks directly to him and causes his television to undulate as he kisses the screen. Disturbed, Max returns to O'Blivion's homeless shelter. Bianca tells him Videodrome carries a broadcast signal that causes the viewer to develop a malignant brain tumor. O'Blivion helped to create it as part of his vision for the future, and viewed the hallucinations as a higher form of reality. When he found out it was to be used for malevolent purposes, he attempted to stop his partners; they used his own invention to kill him. In the year before his death, O'Blivion recorded tens of 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. He uses a device to record Max's fantasies of whipping Nicki. Max then wakes up to find Masha's corpse in his bed—but when Harlan comes to photograph the body as evidence he realizes he isn't hallucinating. Wanting to see the latest Videodrome broadcast, Max meets Harlan at his studio. There, Harlan reveals that he has been working with Convex with the goal of recruiting Max to their cause: to end North America's cultural decay by giving fatal brain tumors to anyone so obsessed with sex and violence that they would watch Videodrome. Convex then inserts a brainwashing Betamax tape into Max's torso. Under Convex's influence, Max murders his colleagues at CIVIC-TV. He later attempts to murder Bianca, who manages to stop 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." On her orders, he kills Harlan and Convex. Wanted for their murders as well of those of his colleagues, Max takes refuge on a derelict boat in the Port Lands. Appearing to him on a television, Nicki tells him he has weakened Videodrome, but in order to completely defeat it, he must ascend to the next level and "leave the old flesh". The television then shows an image of Max shooting himself in the head, which causes the set to explode. Reenacting what he has just seen on the television, Max utters the words "Long live the new flesh" and shoots himself. As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, he sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show, however, discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.