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David Cronenberg is such a gloriously perverse sicko, how could you not love him? The thinking man's gorehound, through most of his career Cronenberg has specialized in his own peculiar genre of existential splatter picture. Equal parts blood, gore, deviant sex, and philosophical treatise on the nature of man, a Cronenberg movie is a truly unique experience, each film unmistakably his own. Though he has strayed into other, less bloody genres from time to time, it is his "New Flesh" series of movies from the 1977 Shivers through (currently) 1999's eXistenZ that David Cronenberg will be remembered for. This encompasses his triumvirate of most famous films: Scanners, Videodrome, and (thus far his only mainstream commercial breakthrough) The Fly. Of these, perhaps the most "Cronenbergian" is 1983's Videodrome, which although never a box office hit is almost a perfect crystallization of the director's cinematic vision.

Even in his non-horror pictures, Cronenberg always deals with the same basic thematic concerns: transformation, transcendence, the merger of flesh and technology, and the thin line between reality and our distorted perception of it. Where does reality end and fantasy begin? If we perceive the fantasy as real, does it become reality? Videodrome takes these ideas and makes them literal. The story concerns schlock TV producer Max Renn, a man who peddles "softcore pornography and hardcore violence" on an obscure UHF station at the end of the dial. Renn is always on the lookout for a new thrill, a better way to exploit his viewers' appetite for the extremes of sexual stimulation. He thinks he's found it in a pirate broadcast he stumbles across called Videodrome, a show of unknown origin featuring graphic rape and torture with seemingly no plot or story. It's exactly what he's looking for, and he's fascinated. His quest to find the source of the broadcast quickly becomes obsessive, and his exposure to the program triggers a series of disturbing, paranoid hallucinations so vivid that he soon cannot distinguish them from reality, if indeed they aren't real.

Ingeniously, Cronenberg has structured the plot so that we can only see events unfold as the Renn character does. James Woods is in every single scene in the movie, and practically every shot. The way one event progresses to the next is the way he experiences them, and although things become stranger and more perverse they always make sense in the context of the particular moment when they happen. Since Max is never sure whether he is hallucinating or not, whether the elaborate conspiracy he uncovers is real or just his imagination, neither are we, and thus what happens in the hallucinatory state is in effect real, as bizarre as it may seem.

And bizarre indeed are Max's visions. With the help of makeup effects guru Rick Baker, Cronenberg delivers up some truly grotesque, disturbing, and indelible images in the form of mutating flesh and machine merging indistinguishably into one another. In the film's signature set-piece, Max's television, now the center of his life, throbs and moans in biomechanical erotic ecstasy until Max is drawn in and almost swallowed whole. This kind of technoporn is sick stuff, and it's genius, repulsive and alluring at the same time

In a Cronenberg movie, there are no monsters. His mutations always spring forth from within, the human form in evolution. As Videodrome's media evangelist Brian O'Blivion prophesizes, man and technology are evolving into an inexorable state of mutual transcendence, where a man's life viewed via electronic media will become more real than the life of his flesh, and people will take on "special names" such as his own that they will be known by in the electronic realm. It's a vision that presages the internet by a good number of years.

Videodrome the movie is notorious for having gone into production without a completed script, its ending written and rewritten numerous times before Cronenberg settled on what he wanted. At the time it was released, this seemed to result in a schizophrenic movie with a near-incomprehensible plot that was all over the place. Looking back now, the movie actually holds together much better, its fractured storyline a reflection of the protagonist's psyche. The finished product is a very short, very tight little movie. James Woods is a superb antihero, and Blondie rocker Debbie Harry in one of her first big screen roles may be a little stiff as an actress but makes a lovely vision of early 80s hotness in her big hair and ridiculous clothes. The ending that Cronenberg finally chose for the film is so perfect it should have seemed inevitable. And frankly, I think we as viewers have evolved in the ensuing years, and are a bit more sophisticated in our understanding of complicated narratives.

The world has finally caught up with Videodrome, and this Criterion Collection release of the unrated director's cut (featuring extra tidbits of gore censored from the original theatrical release) should cement its status as not just a cult classic, but an important film.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Videodrome was previously released on DVD by Universal Home Video back in 1998 with a barely-acceptable non- anamorphic widescreen transfer. Criterion's new remaster is of course a significant improvement. In fact, it looks pretty terrific for a low-budget Canadian horror flick from 1983.

The movie retains its 1.85:1 aspect ratio from the past DVD, which occasionally looks a little tight on the top and bottom, but adds anamorphic enhancement for a much more detailed image. The picture has been mastered from fine-grained source elements in excellent condition and digitally scrubbed of imperfections. Colors are clean and striking in their subtle shadings. Contrast range and depth are excellent, as is visible shadow detail. The picture is fairly sharp and has basically no edge enhancement artifacts (I noticed some fleeting ringing on exactly one random shot). There is a minor presence of grain owing to the film stocks used, but it looks very natural and film-like without noise or distortion. Criterion once again gets high marks all around for their efforts.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono soundtrack is also in good shape, though obviously is restrained by the limitations of its original sound design. Howard Shore's gothic electronic score has nice depth and clarity for a monaural recording. Resonant bass is present in the music, but the rest of the soundtrack has little snap or boom. Gunshots sound hollow, probably library tracks from a sound effects tape. On the other hand, all of the squirming and pulsing of writing flesh machines sounds suitably icky.

English subtitles have been provided, but no other language or subtitle options.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

First off, I've got to show my appreciation for Criterion's inspired packaging for this title. The cover is designed to look like a videocassette box and when you pull out the keepcase, the case art looks just like a bootleg Beta tape. It's perfect. Inside is another of Criterion's usual thick booklets, this one with three excellent essays on the movie by film critic Carrie Rickey, Video Watchdog editor Tim Lucas, and cultural critic Gary Indiana.

Disc 1 starts with two very good audio commentaries. On the first, director David Cronenberg and cinematographer Mark Irwin (recorded separately) share their thoughts about what they were trying to accomplish with the film. Cronenberg on the infamous scene in which a videotape is inserted into a vaginal- looking wound in James Woods' stomach: "It's basically getting fucked by television, which I think everybody is". They talk a little bit about problems they had with censorship, but unfortunately don't make mention of the alternate version of the movie that has aired on television. The second commentary is by James Woods and Deborah Harry (also recorded separately). Woods dominates the track, but both actors offer surprisingly intelligent and enthusiastic comments about the film and why it has stood the test of time. I realize that Woods was a member of Mensa, but I still keep expecting him to be an insane maniac.

A 6-minute short film titled Camera that Cronenberg directed for the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival is also included on Disc 1. The piece stars Les Carlson, the actor who played Barry Convex in Videodrome, and shares some thematic elements in common with the feature (but no gore).

The rest of the bonus features are found on Disc 2, starting with the 27-minute Forging the New Flesh television documentary by video effects supervisor Michael Lennick. Lennick's narration is a little annoying in tone, but the documentary has a lot of interesting material on how the spectacular makeup and mechanical effects were built on such a tight budget. Makeup effects genius Rick Baker is interviewed among others, interspersed with appropriate pieces of vintage behind-the-scenes promotional material.

Along similar lines, the Effects Men section contains 20 minutes of fascinating audio interviews with Rick Baker and Michael Lennick, further discussing their work on the film and the 1980s "Golden Age" of makeup effects.

Under the Bootleg Video heading are three pieces of extended footage that the characters in the film were watching on TV. First is the full 5-minute Samurai Dreams softcore porno (which is actually pretty hot!), followed by 7 minutes of Transmissions from Videodrome and 5 minutes of Helmet-Cam footage broken down so you can see how the effect was achieved. All three pieces offer audio commentary. Samurai Dreams has two separate tracks, one from Cronenberg and the other from cinematographer Mark Irwin and effects supervisor Michael Lennick. Irwin and Lennick together again talk about the Videodrome footage, and Lennick alone discusses the Helmet-Cam.

Fear on Film is a vintage 1982 television roundtable discussion about the state of the horror movie genre with Cronenberg (still in production on Videodrome), John Carpenter (wrapping up work on The Thing) and John Landis (fresh off American Werewolf in London). Future schlock-movie hack Mick Garris hosts the proceedings. Landis is a cut-up and gets most of the best quips, Carpenter seems to take himself too seriously, and Cronenberg is as intellectual as expected. It's an interesting, worthwhile watch.

For Marketing, we are provided with three trailers for the film, all terrible (two of them are animated!), a vintage 7-minute Making of Videodrome featurette, and some marketing and publicity still galleries. Can you believe that Panasonic actually launched a tie-in contest so that Videodrome viewers could win a new TV? It boggles the mind.

All of the supplements are very good and interesting, but missing entirely from the disc is any mention of the alternate ending with animated closing credits that has aired on television. I'm sure that Cronenberg had nothing to do with that footage and disowns its existence, but it would still be interesting to see in the context of the movie's complicated production and release history.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

There are no ROM extras on the disc.

Parting Thoughts

The Criterion Collection edition of Videodrome is an essential purchase for horror movie buffs or fans of David Cronenberg. The movie has never looked better and the supplements are terrific. This is an all-around great package from Criterion. If nothing else, Videodrome was the movie that told us what we are only now beginning to understand, but should have known all along, that videotape is evil.