Nightmares are not like horror movies.  If a maniac chases you, a psychologist is not going to show up at the last minute and explain what traumatic childhood event let him to commit his crimes.  There is not some spell or incantation to send the demon back to hell.  There is no antidote.  No logic.  And that is precisely what makes them so scary.  Which is why I love David Cronenberg, whose horror movies are like nightmares.

In more recent years, Cronenberg has become known for cerebral dramas like A History Of Violence and M Butterfly.  Back in the day, he made a name for himself with intellectual exploitation horror, like Scanners, Rabid, and The Brood.  One in particular, Videodrome, was the film that made me call David Cronenberg my favorite director.  (Notice: I didn’t say he was my favorite HORROR director.)

The plot of an early Cronenberg film is one that is always hard to explain without making it sound ridiculous.  I always wondered how he would go about pitching his ideas.  Like, “Okay, this woman had a traumatic childhood, and she’s in therapy.  And she’s undergoing this treatment that causes her psychological trauma to manifest itself as blood blisters all over her body.  And the blood blisters get really big and turn into wombs, and these little babies without belly buttons come out and kill anybody she gets pissed at!”  Because of this, I will refrain from describing the plot of Videodrome too much. 

Let’s start with the trailer

shall we?  My God, was this actually shown in theaters?  It’s a cacophony of new wave animation unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

The film stars James Woods and Debbie Harry, the Undisputed Queen Of Cool.  Debbie is best known as the lead singer of Blondie, a band I was fortunate enough to see live.  She also has excellent taste, as she counts this film, and the John Waters film Hairspray as her two favorite film roles.  She plays Nicki Brand, a highly sexual radio personality.  Her surname comes from a scene in which she intentionally burns her breast with a cigarette. 

What works in Videodrome, as with many of Cronenberg’s films, is that it feels like a nightmare.  Woods’ charater, Max Renn, is compelled to pull a gun out of an opening in his abdomen.  As he holds it, the gun mutates (in a Cronenberg movie, an inanimate object can, in fact, mutate) are becomes part of his hand.  TV screens and videocassettes start breathing.  And that’s just the beginning.

My favorite line comes from Brian O’Blivion, a character who appears only on a TV screen.  He says, quite prophetically, “O’Blivion is not the name I was born with.  It’s my television name.  Soon, all of us will ave special names.  Names designed to cause the cathode ray tube to resonate.

LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!

Tags | rachel grubb, Scream Queen