--- title: "Videodrome" year: 1983 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/videodrome" fi1m_id: "videodrome" imdb_id: "tt0086541" tmdb_id: 837 wikidata_id: "Q747551" fi1m_score: 82 critics_score: 84 critics_reviews: 12 published: "2026-09-18" updated: "2026-09-18T08:38:02.370534+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Videodrome (1983) Directed by David Cronenberg · 1h 28m · MPA R · Horror, Science Fiction, Mystery ## Identity Videodrome - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/videodrome - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** videodrome - **IMDb ID:** tt0086541 - **TMDB ID:** 837 - **Wikidata ID:** Q747551 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/837, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q747551 **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 84 from 12 reviews *In a sentence:* A man presses his face into his television and, given the programming, we could not entirely blame him > David Cronenberg’s horror about a cable boss who tunes into a torture broadcast is as unsettling now as it was in 1983, for about an hour, and then the plot comes apart in his hands. See it anyway; nothing else looks like it. ## Synopsis Max Renn (James Woods) runs Civic TV, a small cable station in Toronto that fills its nights with soft pornography and cheap violence, and he is bored. His technician Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) has been pirating satellite signals and shows him something new: Videodrome, a broadcast with no plot, no credits and no dialogue, just people being tortured and killed in a room with clay walls. Max wants it for his channel. On a television debate he meets Nicki Brand (Debbie Harry), a radio agony aunt who likes pain, and Professor Brian O’Blivion (Jack Creley), who only ever appears on a monitor. Masha (Lynne Gorman), who sells Max his softcore, warns him that Videodrome is not staged. Then his television begins to breathe. ## Review Max Renn (James Woods) runs a cable channel in Toronto that shows soft pornography and cheap violence after midnight, and he says, more than once, that he is looking for something harder. He finds it. Videodrome, pirated off a satellite by his technician Harlan (Peter Dvorsky), is an hour of torture in a clay-walled room with no story attached, and Renn wants to buy it. David Cronenberg, who wrote and directed, made this in 1983, and for about an hour it is frightening, funny and quite unlike anything made before or since. Then it loses its grip, and we will come to that. What Cronenberg is after is not the torture but what watching does to the watcher. Renn’s chat-show opponent, Professor Brian O’Blivion (Jack Creley), exists only on videotape and lectures, from a monitor, on the screen as a part of the eye. His daughter Bianca (Sonja Smits) runs a mission where the homeless are given a cubicle and a set each instead of soup. Masha (Lynne Gorman), who supplies Renn’s softcore, tells him Videodrome is not acting. Nobody in this film simply watches television. They are fed by it, treated by it or eaten by it, and Cronenberg keeps the joke and the horror running in the same scene. Mark Irwin shoots it in the light of an office on a wet afternoon: beige walls, fluorescent tubes, brown carpet. He does not change any of that when Renn starts to hallucinate. The first time the television set swells, a pair of lips fills the screen and Woods puts his face into it, the room is lit exactly as it was a minute before. We were revolted, and we leaned closer, and we have not entirely trusted a screen since. The effects are built things, rubber and latex and pumps, and they move with a wet weight no computer has yet managed. Howard Shore’s score sounds like an orchestra being swapped for a machine one instrument at a time, and Ronald Sanders cuts between the flat and the hallucinations with no dissolve or chime to tell you which is which. Delphine White puts Debbie Harry’s Nicki Brand in red in a film that is otherwise beige and brown. Woods is the film. He plays Renn as a man who has spent so long selling other people’s appetites that he has forgotten he has any of his own, and when Nicki Brand, on their first night together, asks him to hurt her, Woods lets you watch him decide. He talks fast, walks fast and is never once likeable, and in the last half hour, when the script has stopped helping, he holds the thing together on nerve. Harry is good and underused; she is the poster, and she is off screen for most of the running time. Leslie Carlson plays Barry Convex, a spectacles salesman who takes an interest in Renn, as the friendliest man in the film, which is the warning. For an hour Cronenberg refuses to explain, and that works because everything on screen is so exact. In the last twenty minutes he starts to explain, and the explanation is a conspiracy plot: a company, a plan, men with guns in corridors. The images stay remarkable, one in particular we would not spoil for anything, but the story around them is the sort of thing a dozen cheaper films had already done, and Cronenberg seems to know it, because he gets through it at speed. Some of the later effects also look like what they are; a hand that is meant to horrify is, second time round, plainly rubber. We were still gripped. We were no longer frightened. This came two years after *Scanners* and three before [*The Fly*](https://film.one/film/the-fly), and it sits between them in more than the calendar: less tidy than *The Fly*, far more ambitious than *Scanners*, and the first of his films in which the ideas and the flesh are the same thing. Most critics now call it prophetic, because we all carry a screen about and press our faces to it. That is true as far as it goes, and it slightly oversells a film that is, at bottom, a nasty, clever 88 minutes about one man and his television. It carries an 18 certificate and earns it. Watch it late, on the smallest screen in the house, with the lights off, and when it finishes leave the set on for a minute before you touch it. *Fi1m score 82, published 18 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Videodrome worth watching?** *Videodrome* is worth watching for anyone with a strong stomach and an interest in horror that has ideas, and we scored it 82. For about an hour it is frightening, funny and unlike anything else; in the last twenty minutes the plot turns into a routine conspiracy and some of the rubber shows. James Woods holds it together on nerve. **How long is Videodrome, and what is it rated?** *Videodrome* runs 1h 28m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a horror and science fiction film. **Where can I watch Videodrome in the US?** *Videodrome* is available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $3.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Videodrome, and is it suitable for children?** *Videodrome* carries an 18 certificate in the UK and is not suitable for children or younger teenagers. It contains a torture broadcast, sadomasochistic sex, and body horror in which a television set breathes and a man pushes his face into the screen, all done with wet, heavy latex effects. The squeamish should stay away; the effect is revulsion as much as fright. **How does Videodrome compare to Tetsuo: The Iron Man?** *Videodrome* is the calmer and more considered of the two, set in beige offices and lit like a wet afternoon, where [*Tetsuo: The Iron Man*](https://film.one/film/tetsuo-the-iron-man) is sixty-odd minutes of shrieking black-and-white metal. Both rely on handmade effects and both are physically revolting. We think *Videodrome* the better film, with a real performance at its centre; *Tetsuo* is thinner on character but harder to shake off. ### Reviews we read (12) - **RogerEbert.com**, Walter Chaw (95/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a masterpiece and a prophetic sociological provocation that has lost none of its power. He singles out its prescient exploration of how unregulated media and technology mutate human perception and behavior. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/a-vision-of-the-future-on-david-cronenbergs-videodrome) - **Empire**, Adam Smith (90/100, inferred): The critic highlights Videodrome as a landmark of body horror that Cronenberg invented and made his own, with its unique fleshy surrealism, hallucinations, and mutations stemming from a sinister TV signal. It notes the film's perfect timing with 1980s anxieties around television, video, and censorship, calling Cronenberg the single most important director working in horror. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/videodrome-review/) - **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (90/100, inferred): Highlights the film's prescience in imagining virtual reality and the merging of technology with the body, calling it more relevant than ever. Singles out Cronenberg's unique integration of the creepy and cerebral, with James Woods' performance and the dense mysteries as strengths. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/videodrome-1798199936) - **Little White Lies**, Adam Woodward (85/100, inferred): Cronenberg’s erotically-charged social satire is a cautionary tale for the internet age that feels more relevant than ever. It explores humanity’s masochistic tendencies toward technology and media through visceral body horror and prescient themes of screens, violence and dehumanisation. [Read](https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/videodrome-david-cronenberg-technology) - **Radio Times**, John Ferguson (4/5): One of Cronenberg’s most personal, complex and disturbing films exploring technology fusing with the human body, voyeurism and the links between sex and violence. The startling imagery and James Woods’s fierce performance make for a deeply unsettling experience despite a plot that unravels. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-96o8ca/videodrome/) - **Slant Magazine**, Chris Cabin (70/100, inferred): Praises the film's forward-looking intelligence and prescient exploration of technology, media, sex, violence, and the body despite some narrative incoherence. Singles out the Criterion 4K restoration for its superior image quality that brings the visceral effects and themes to life anew. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/videodrome-4k-uhd-blu-ray-review-david-cronenberg/) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The critic notes Cronenberg's interest in technology and physiology merging into new eroticism. While some visual effects are eccentric rather than scary and literal, the film stands out for its originality and wit compared to similar works. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,,398719,00.html) - **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film clever and inventive in its satirical take on media exploitation, with strong special effects and a futuristic feel. She notes that it eventually grows grotesque and a little confused, though it sustains its cleverness for a long while. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/04/movies/videodrome-lurid-fantasies-of-the-tube.html) - **The Skinny**, Alan Bett (★★★★★): The critic calls it an unsettling masterwork that delivers horrific mind mutilation beyond body horror, tackling TV's influence in a way relevant to the digital age. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/dvd-reviews/videodrome) - **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (A): The critic praises Videodrome as the most Cronenbergian of Cronenberg's films, highlighting its perfect encapsulation of themes like body vs. mind and the seductive power of technology. It balances body horror with chilly cerebrality in a prescient yet period-specific way, calling it terrific. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/retrospective-the-films-of-david-cronenberg-20151020/3/) - **Collider**, Marco Vito Oddo (A-): The critic praises its visionary exploration of how media shapes perception and reality, noting its continued relevance decades later. It also highlights the enduring power of its practical body horror effects. [Read](https://collider.com/videodrome-movie-review/) - **Den of Geek**, Ryan Lambie (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Videodrome as Cronenberg's richest and most audacious film, highlighting its exploration of violent imagery's effects and memorable practical effects. It notes the film's enduring relevance and James Woods' strong performance. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/looking-back-at-david-cronenbergs-videodrome/) ## Details - **Director:** David Cronenberg - **Director:** David Cronenberg - **Writer:** David Cronenberg - **Cinematography:** Mark Irwin - **Editor:** Ronald Sanders - **Music:** Howard Shore - **Costume design:** Delphine White - **Producer:** Claude Héroux - **Cast:** James Woods as Max Renn; Debbie Harry as Nicki Brand; Sonja Smits as Bianca O'Blivion; Peter Dvorsky as Harlan; Leslie Carlson as Barry Convex; Jack Creley as Brian O'Blivion; Lynne Gorman as Masha; Julie Khaner as Bridey - **Runtime:** 1h 28m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 4 February 1983 - **Genres:** Horror, Science Fiction, Mystery - **Budget:** $6 million - **Box office:** $2 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8BUXKcp8zE ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-18.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CL, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IN, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *eXistenZ* (1999): Cronenberg, sixteen years on, plugs the game console straight into the spine. - *Tetsuo: The Iron Man* (1989), Fi1m 82: A Tokyo salaryman turns to scrap metal; sixty-odd minutes of shrieking black-and-white. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/tetsuo-the-iron-man.md) - *Possession* (1981): A marriage ends in a Berlin flat and something grows in the other one. - *Peeping Tom* (1960): A cameraman who films what he does to women; Britain hated it, then came round. - *Pulse* (2001): Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s ghosts arrive through the dial-up; the loneliest film about screens we know. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/videodrome