body horror film
written and directed by David Cronenberg
, starring James Woods
, Sonja Smits
, and singer Deborah Harry. Set in Toronto
during the early 1980s, it follows the CEO of a small cable station who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring extreme violence and torture. The layers of deception and mind-control conspiracy unfold as he uncovers the signal's source and loses touch with reality in a series of increasingly bizarre and violent organic hallucinations.
Of course, "O'Blivion" was not the name I was born with. That's my television name. Soon, all of us will have special names — names designed to cause the cathode ray tube to resonate.
After all, there is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there? You can see that can't you?
The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena — the videodrome. The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore television is reality, and reality is less than television.
Max, I'm so glad you've came to me. I've been through it all myself you see. Your reality is already half video hallucination. If you're not careful, it will become total hallucination. You'll have to learn to live in a very strange new world... I had a brain tumour and I had visions. I believe the visions cause the tumour and not the reverse. I can feel the visions coalsce and become flesh. Uncontrollable flesh. But when they removed the tumour, it was called Videodrome.
North America's getting soft, padrone. And the rest of the world is getting tough. Very, very tough. We're entering savage new times, and we're going to have to be pure... and direct... and strong... if we're gonna survive them. Now, you and this, uh, cesspool you call a television station... and, uh, your people who wallow around in it... and, uh, your viewers... who watch you do it— you're rotting us away from the inside. We intend to stop that rot.
Your head, we have you head in the box.
You'll forgive me if I don't stay around to watch. I just can't cope with freaky stuff.
First in controls your mind... then it destroys your body.
First it controlled her mind, then it destroyed her body... Long live the new flesh!