film

Just a few days after treating us to The Fly, Sala Phenomena continue their run of David Cronenberg films with Videodrome – a brilliantly disturbing 1983 body horror about Max Renn, the manager of a small Toronto television station specialising in sensationalist programming. When Max discovers a mysterious broadcast called Videodrome that features what appears to be real torture and murder, his fascination quickly turns into an obsession.

As his perceptions begin to fracture, television, sexuality and physical reality become increasingly impossible to separate. Cronenberg uses grotesque transformations – including one unforgettable scene involving a television set – to explore the seductive and destructive power of new technology and images. Starring James Woods and Debbie Harry, it remains one of the boundary-pushing auteur's most unsettling films.