Oct. 11, 2026

David Cronenberg - Videodrome

Show Notes
Transcript

Jeff and Brad descend into the disturbing subgenre of 'body horror' with a discussion about the terrors of technology, television, and hallucination. It's David Cronenberg's cult classic, Videodrome!

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WEBVTT

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Hey, everybody. Jeff Johnson here. And if you've been listening

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to this show for any length of time, you already know.

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I love scary movies. I love the horror movie season.

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And if, like me, you are looking for a little

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more blood and gore, I'd like to tell you about

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a couple fiends I've been hanging out with lately. Last week,

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I was found lurking around the Docking Bay 77 podcast

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where they let me talk about a Universal Monsters classic,

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Werewolf of London. From there, I crept my way over

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to the Cinematic Flashback podcast where things got a little

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weird with Dario Argento's Suspiria. And this Tuesday, October 13th,

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I joined Bill Bant over on the All 80s Movies

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podcast to talk about a subgenre that just doesn't get

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enough love, probably because it's a little too grotesque. Body horror.

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Bill and I will get inside each other's heads with

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less explosive results when we discuss Scanners. Speaking of body horror,

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let's talk about a film by David Cronenberg. His 1983

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sci-fi splatterfest, Videodrome. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the

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Film By podcast. I am Jeff Johnson, and with me,

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as always, Brad Kozo.

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See Patron.

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Uh, what you took like less than 30 seconds to, uh, to, to,

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to do something from the movie. I dig that. Uh, yeah.

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Cronenberg's a video drone. Uh, man, I've been looking forward

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to talking Cronenberg. What about you?

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Uh, I mean, I really do like David Cronenberg. Um,

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he's an acquired taste, uh, for sure. And, uh, This movie,

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I always just kind of passed it by because I

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really didn't know a whole lot about it, except that

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it was a David Cronenberg film until I saw, I

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believe it was that Shudder documentary in The Search of Darkness,

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where they showed some clips for me and they talked

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about it. I was like, okay, I must see this.

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I must see this. It looks so bizarre.

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But yeah, very, very different film.

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I saw this a long time ago. And the reason

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I watched it, you mentioned the shutter documentary. My reason

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I remember being like, I must've been like 12 or

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13 was an avid fan of Fangoria magazine to the point.

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Like I would, I was getting back issues and you know,

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in 83 Cronenberg is all over Fangoria, like the video

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drum covers and stuff. And I just, I remember reading

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the articles and seeing like some of the, the, the

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photo stills. And I was like, I don't know when

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I'm going to get to see this, but I have

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to see it. And I think it was maybe a

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couple of years after that. I saw it on HBO

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like late night. Yeah. So awesome movie. I want to

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say something though, before we get into Videodrome. And I

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know we usually do this at the end, but I

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want to, I want to kind of talk about this

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real quick. Cause this is kind of cool. So we

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always talk about our show and like, you know, you

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can stream it. You can stream us on all the

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platforms or at least we thought so. Recently, one of

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our listeners on Twitter, at Def Dave, kind of shouted, hey,

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I want to listen to the show, but I'm on Podbean.

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Where are you? So obviously, we were quick to recover that, Brad.

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And we are now streaming on the Podbean app. And

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for those of you that don't know, it's actually one

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of the most popular podcast apps for the iOS and

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Android platforms. And this thing can also play a podcast

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via the Amazon Alexa. If you've got those in your house. Yeah. Alexa,

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play a film by.

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Careful, she might turn on.

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Well, listen, I just want to shout out Podbean because

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their app is awesome. I'm actually, I downloaded it onto

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my phone. I have recently acquired a taste for the

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true crime podcast stuff.

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All those are great.

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Yeah, and I'm just devouring them, but I'm using the podcast.

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I'm sorry, I'm using the Podbean app. So listen, if

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you're not settled on how you're listening to our show,

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I would strongly recommend Podbean because I'm loving it.

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This is all news to me.

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Download it today, Brad, because you will love using this app.

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I can tell you that right now. But back to

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our show. So David Cronenberg is a, you said it

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like you he's, he's out there, right?

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He's out there in a way that I can't find

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an influence that he uses. And yet I can't find

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anyone else that uses him as an influence at either.

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He really is a taste all by himself, right?

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Would you agree that a Cronenberg movie has a specific look?

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I know we've talked about this on this show before

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with other directors. I feel like Cronenberg has a look.

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I feel like they did around this time, around the

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early 80s, when he was doing basically straight horror. Now

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they don't seem to have a very signature look. Now

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it seems like he's experimenting more.

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Okay, okay. So this movie is just strange, right?

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Extremely strange and i don't know if i got it.

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All the way all right i'm sure i didn't you

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know because i i just saw this for the first

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time a couple of days.

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Ago i'll tell you this is one of those uh

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if you're a cronenberg fan i i feel like it's

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kind of like you're gonna watch it a few times

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you know because you're gonna need to yeah it's it's

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it's cerebral right um and i you know i use

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the word perverse when i was talking about squid game

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Cronenberg definitely has a perverse feel to his movies, especially

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the 80s stuff, like the 80s horror and the body

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horror stuff that he was doing. I don't know what

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else to call it, but it's almost like a subgenre

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within the genre, right?

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It's letting your mind go to places that you're just

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very uncomfortable with. Some of this stuff is very uncomfortable

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to watch. And you have to be You have to

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know that going into his movies because he does certain

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types of movies that a lot of people would be

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extremely turned off. And I can see a lot of

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people being extremely turned off by this movie, but also

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the same way people like us were, who are very intrigued.

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By it because it's so obscure because it's so strange.

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Yeah. I think if you haven't seen this movie yet,

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if you're a horror fan or if you're a Cronenberg fan,

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or if you're just a fan of, If you're just curious,

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this movie kind of checks all those boxes. At least

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it did for me. But what we're talking about, so Videodrome,

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James Woods, a very young James Woods. I don't think

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he was that known at this time. Was he, Brad? No, no.

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I mean, he had done some stuff like that Sergio

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Leone movie, Once Upon a Time in America and stuff.

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But I don't think he would. He was starting to

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become a name.

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Okay. So he plays kind of a slimy... cable producer

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i think that's fair to say i mean i know

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it's exactly what he is yeah um so he works

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for uh this civic tv and what they do uh

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they kind of they put out kind of um trash

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tv is that fair.

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Yeah absolutely i mean that's 100 fair yeah it's trash

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tv he even i mean.

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He knows it is too yeah so he's looking for

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new content right yeah he comes across this uh They're

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even stealing the satellite. They're pirating shows off of other networks, right? Yeah.

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And he finds this very bizarre show called Videodrome, and

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it's straight up just torture and murder.

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Yeah, it's like a snuff film.

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Yeah, it's like a snuff film. And he's looking to

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push the envelope on his UHF station. So he gets

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into this, right? And what we find out is Videodrome

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was created by this company that's really, it reminded me

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of like the Shamrock company from Halloween 3, Season of

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the Witch. Did you get that vibe?

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A little bit, but also very.

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Marathon man or conspiracy theory, like, you know, creating, you know,

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a certain kind of person.

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Yeah.

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So this company is out there. And this show, they're

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basically using it to kill off anyone that's obsessed with

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sex and violence and horror. You watch Videodrome, it causes

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a malignant brain tumor. Yeah. So I definitely had had

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shamrock uh mask the shamrock halloween company or whatever that's

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called um definitely made me feel like that it's creepy

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this movie is just creepy it's creepy in.

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A way that was not you know horror movie of

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the 80s.

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A movie about an evil television signal or network, you know,

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didn't really, I mean, especially to me, sound appealing at

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the time, but I mean, cause you're, you're surrounded by

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slashers and supernatural type of, you know, horror, but yeah,

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it turns into this, you know, plot revealing, you know,

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conspiracy that ends up being this.

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Kind of war.

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Is it supernatural? Is it technological or, it's.

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Hard to tell, you know, you can't really, you can't

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really come out of this movie and go, Hey, I

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got all the answers.

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No, you definitely can't. Uh, let's find some of those answers,

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but before we do, do you want to talk a

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little bit about the cast? Yeah, absolutely.

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I mean, of course you have James.

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Woods, the, the amazing James Woods. Uh, if I had

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to ask you, cause I think we're going to have

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the same answer. You got a favorite James Woods character.

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Um, I really like him. This is biased of me,

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but I really like him in Vampires.

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Jack Crow, right?

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I really do like Jack Crow. But he also plays

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a lot of really good, I think, supporting characters. He's

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really good in Contact. He's great in Casino.

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What was he? Lester Diamond.

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Lester Diamond. He's such a scumbag. I mean.

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You can, I guess, make a career, I guess.

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You know, he's done a pretty good job of making

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that career of a scum, baggy, you know, type of,

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you know, type of character.

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But I mean, you know, you find a niche and

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you do it really well.

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All right. Let's talk. What do you think about Debbie Harry?

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I had one big problem with her in this movie.

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The fact that Blondie was not blonde. I mean, I

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want my Blondie blonde.

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She's, I mean, she's billed as Debbie Harry.

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Yeah.

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Why, why don't you cat? I mean, if you're Cronenberg,

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why don't you cast her as Blondie? Well, I mean,

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don't you want, I mean, doesn't that raise the box

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office a little bit?

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Well, you know, they always want to find me. This

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is Debbie Harry, the actress, not, you know, Debbie Harry,

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the singer from Blondie, you know, so they, they make

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her hair red and stuff, but yeah, I really like

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what she does because it is not a.

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It's almost a role that you're not really sure is

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real or not. And she plays it like that. You know,

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it's sometimes a little too good to be true. And

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then it becomes... She becomes a little scary at times.

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Oh, she definitely becomes a little scary at times.

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So I like what she does because... you go through

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this movie going, was she ever even really there?

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Well, I mean, I think she's there because like her character,

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Nikki is this, uh, radio DJ, right? She, she does

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like a, she's her shows like a crisis show where

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she helps people. Maybe. Um, I think, I mean, I

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think she's there. Like you have that, that, uh, that ridiculous, uh,

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talk show that her and, uh, James Woods are on

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where he just, just, I love that. He just immediately

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hijacks the show. It was like, hey, listen, I'd really

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like to take you out to dinner. And they just

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have a conversation.

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Very uncomfortable.

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I felt, I mean, as much kind of creepy, gory

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stuff there is in this movie, that scene kind of

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made me like, is he just, they're filming the show

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and he's just going to just keep on like asking

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her out in the.

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Middle of it.

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Made you feel really uncomfortable.

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Because he, you know, because he's on there to be

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like the slimy, like, hey, has your television show gone

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too far? But then he just comes off as like

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a creep because he's like, He starts commenting on her

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red dress and what that means. And he's like, ah, what,

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you know, can I take you out to dinner? And

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just starts hitting on her. Like he's, he's predatory, right?

239
00:14:11.340 --> 00:14:12.659
Yeah.

240
00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:15.080
It really gives you, he just, his, I don't know.

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Like when I'm watching it originally, I'm, I'm, I'm not

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sure that he's the good guy because of that scene.

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I think he's, you know, cause he makes your skin

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crawl a little bit.

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What I like about his character is that he knows

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00:14:28.549 --> 00:14:31.690
the stuff he's putting on is not quality stuff.

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But he also knows how to make money. You know, he's,

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he's not living large.

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I mean, look at his apartment, you know, I mean, he's,

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00:14:40.299 --> 00:14:44.120
he runs a studio with, you know, partners. You'd expect

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00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:46.879
him to be a lot more well off. Like when

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00:14:46.899 --> 00:14:48.039
you first saw him in his place, it was like,

253
00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:51.059
is he in his place? Cause his place is just,

254
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you know, a shithole.

255
00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:54.919
It's terrible.

256
00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:57.480
I'm going to call you out. I look at his

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place in the video room. It reminds me of your

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00:15:00.379 --> 00:15:01.480
first apartment on sunset.

259
00:15:02.110 --> 00:15:02.389
Yeah.

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00:15:02.409 --> 00:15:05.389
When you lived in Hollywood. It was terrible. Yeah. You,

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00:15:05.490 --> 00:15:08.070
you had, you had the, the James Woods apartment, I think.

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But he's got to make a living and he knows

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that this kind of material will, you know, pay him

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enough to live the kind of life that he wants.

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You know, he's, he's not looking for awards or, you know,

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credibility and stuff. He just wants to make money like

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everyone else.

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00:15:24.759 --> 00:15:27.080
Well, you, you started to talk about, there was something

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00:15:27.139 --> 00:15:29.200
that you didn't like about Debbie Harry. Let's, let's talk

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00:15:29.220 --> 00:15:31.759
about what you Let's talk about the likes and dislikes

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of this movie. Let's start with dislikes because you got

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something about Debbie Harry.

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I mean, just the fact that she wasn't blonde just

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kind of disappointed me when I saw that she was

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in this. The only thing that I felt that I

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00:15:46.409 --> 00:15:49.690
didn't really like was that it was a little hard

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00:15:49.730 --> 00:15:53.049
to follow from the beginning to figure out what exactly

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is going on because it's a very complex movie. And

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you really do have to stay with it and you

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00:15:59.779 --> 00:16:05.080
really do have to follow along and kind of maybe

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00:16:05.139 --> 00:16:08.960
stop for a moment and think back and, you know,

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make sure that you're still on the right track. But

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other than that, I mean, I thought it was a

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very enjoyable film.

285
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Okay.

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Just done on the basis of something that could be

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so laughable done.

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Wrong, made it work.

289
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You know, just the whole thing of certain things that happen,

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00:16:29.779 --> 00:16:32.879
and I'm sure we'll go into this more, but in

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00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:36.769
any other people's hands, it would come off as just

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goofy and laughable. But David Cronenberg and his special effects

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team are able to pull it off very nicely.

294
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Anyone else that does this movie, it's a joke. You're right.

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Cronenberg gives us all the credibility. Debbie Harry's character, Nikki,

296
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you're right. I don't, I mean, I, yeah, you know,

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00:16:58.590 --> 00:17:01.149
she should be blonde cause she's blondie, but Nikki's a redhead.

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And to your point is she, did she really exist

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at all? I feel that she is a real person

300
00:17:08.579 --> 00:17:10.940
in the, in the film. You know, she's on the

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TV show with him. He goes to visit her at

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00:17:13.539 --> 00:17:17.609
the radio station, but then they're back at his place

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00:17:18.329 --> 00:17:20.470
and she's, her character does like a one 80, you know,

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she's looking through his video cassettes and she's like, Hey,

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00:17:23.170 --> 00:17:26.299
you got any porn? And, Right away. Yeah, right away.

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And then she starts talking about how the violence turns

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her on. And then the movie takes this dramatic turn

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where it kind of gets real psychosexual. And you just...

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It gets weird from there. Yeah.

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00:17:41.390 --> 00:17:42.980
But the thing you have to keep track of in

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the movie, and probably not all of them are spelled out,

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when is Max hallucinating and when is he awake?

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So that's one of the things I... As far as

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likes and dislikes, that's one of the things I do

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00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:59.240
like about the movie. Yeah, it can be a little

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hard to follow. I watch a movie like this, or

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00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:06.799
you watch a movie like Jacob's Ladder, something like that,

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where it's like that cerebral, mind-bending, weird, am I awake,

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00:18:12.390 --> 00:18:15.869
am I not? I'll tell you what, watching this again recently,

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00:18:17.009 --> 00:18:20.250
I'm of the opinion, if you just threw in five

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00:18:20.289 --> 00:18:24.759
or six scenes... with Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, this

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00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:27.180
could easily be a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. It

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00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:30.390
just has the look and it's not too far off.

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I think you could easily turn this into a Nightmare

325
00:18:33.789 --> 00:18:37.829
on Elm Street movie if you had to. That's one

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00:18:37.869 --> 00:18:40.089
of the things I dig about it though. Not only

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does it get you thinking and it makes you wonder,

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00:18:42.349 --> 00:18:44.470
what am I watching or what am I supposed to

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be thinking? It got me fired up to watch other movies.

330
00:18:48.940 --> 00:18:50.339
This is the time of year where we want to

331
00:18:50.380 --> 00:18:54.710
watch scary stuff and supernatural stuff and i'm watching videodrome

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00:18:55.470 --> 00:18:57.109
and aside for like as i'm watching i'm like man

333
00:18:57.150 --> 00:18:59.410
i can't wait to watch scanners again but then i

334
00:18:59.430 --> 00:19:01.430
started thinking like man if freddy krueger walked in the

335
00:19:01.529 --> 00:19:03.329
the scene it would it would kind of make sense

336
00:19:03.789 --> 00:19:07.059
yeah um so i'm i'm okay with it so that's

337
00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:11.880
what i like about the movie um just just weird it's.

338
00:19:11.859 --> 00:19:16.519
Weird and like i said it it's gory it's it

339
00:19:16.940 --> 00:19:21.599
is some cringe worthy types of scenes that you see and,

340
00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:24.519
you know, some subject matter that, I mean, still today

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00:19:24.599 --> 00:19:27.089
is very taboo. I mean, you know, the people that

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00:19:27.349 --> 00:19:33.630
do this kind of torture type of like sexual sensation

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00:19:33.650 --> 00:19:37.210
type of thing, you know, it's still a very touchy subject. Well,

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00:19:37.230 --> 00:19:41.690
at least for me, you know, but to explore that.

345
00:19:41.470 --> 00:19:46.609
In 1983, you know, it was even a lot more ballsy.

346
00:19:46.970 --> 00:19:48.630
So you're saying this movie was definitely ahead of its

347
00:19:48.670 --> 00:19:50.329
time then? I think it's ahead of its time. time.

348
00:19:50.509 --> 00:19:53.140
And I think also too, is that you could actually

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00:19:53.420 --> 00:19:58.750
do this film now and call it TikTok. I mean,

350
00:19:58.890 --> 00:20:03.809
if you think about the way social media kind of

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00:20:04.869 --> 00:20:07.609
sets everyone up for a certain kind of algorithm.

352
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Of what you like, what you don't like, you know,

353
00:20:10.329 --> 00:20:12.670
the angrier you are, the more hits you're going to

354
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get and stuff like that.

355
00:20:14.369 --> 00:20:18.119
This movie saw that, saw it coming on. It's, it's

356
00:20:18.279 --> 00:20:22.579
very relatable today. I think more so today than it

357
00:20:22.819 --> 00:20:26.380
is in 1983. I would agree with you.

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00:20:27.180 --> 00:20:30.579
This is definitely his commentary on the media and, and,

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00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:33.859
and how you, why you should, not buy into everything

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00:20:33.880 --> 00:20:36.400
that you're told just because you saw it on TV

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or you saw it on online. I don't know. And this,

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00:20:41.059 --> 00:20:42.759
this movie kind of goes, it kind of goes back.

363
00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:45.609
So a little bit of background on video dream, cause

364
00:20:45.619 --> 00:20:49.329
it came out in 83, I think February 4th, 1983,

365
00:20:49.329 --> 00:20:52.369
it comes out. But he came up with the idea

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00:20:52.789 --> 00:20:55.970
back in the seventies, you know, when he was a

367
00:20:55.970 --> 00:21:00.789
little bit younger. So he, he writes a treatment called

368
00:21:00.869 --> 00:21:04.589
network of blood. back then. And that's what he's shopping around.

369
00:21:04.650 --> 00:21:07.390
This is when, this is when Cronenberg is, you.

370
00:21:06.799 --> 00:21:10.440
Know, seventies, this is, this is pre rabid, you know?

371
00:21:10.980 --> 00:21:13.539
So this is pre people having VCRs in their room

372
00:21:13.720 --> 00:21:14.539
and they're absolutely.

373
00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:16.329
Yeah. So he, and he just had the idea of,

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00:21:16.920 --> 00:21:21.589
you know, a situation where like a news network is

375
00:21:21.650 --> 00:21:24.990
doing this weird cerebral thing where they're, they're basically poisoning

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00:21:25.029 --> 00:21:28.910
society or they're, they're trying to kill the kill society off.

377
00:21:28.990 --> 00:21:29.170
Right.

378
00:21:29.740 --> 00:21:34.490
So he does this in the 70s. This gets him,

379
00:21:35.349 --> 00:21:38.990
he kind of readdresses it. There was a CBS series

380
00:21:39.009 --> 00:21:41.289
called Peep Show. Have you ever heard of that one?

381
00:21:41.579 --> 00:21:42.619
Uh-uh.

382
00:21:42.700 --> 00:21:43.880
I haven't heard of it. I think it came out

383
00:21:43.940 --> 00:21:47.799
around the time, I think it was like pre-Night Stalker

384
00:21:47.819 --> 00:21:50.980
with Darren McGavin maybe. But he directed an episode of

385
00:21:51.059 --> 00:21:55.950
it called The Victim, which the Max Wren character that

386
00:21:55.970 --> 00:22:01.299
James Woods plays, that's kind of where he, he evolved from. So,

387
00:22:02.019 --> 00:22:04.200
but he always had this idea of like, you know,

388
00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:06.990
what if, what if you were watching something that you're

389
00:22:07.009 --> 00:22:09.519
not supposed to watch and what are the implications of it?

390
00:22:10.970 --> 00:22:13.490
You know, he got, you know, he got a civic

391
00:22:13.509 --> 00:22:17.130
TV that James Woods kind of works for or controls. Yeah.

392
00:22:17.309 --> 00:22:19.470
He even modeled that off of a Canadian, a Canadian

393
00:22:19.529 --> 00:22:24.839
network television city TV. They were known for like, you know, after,

394
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after hours, They showed soft pornography. They showed extreme violence.

395
00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:35.059
The content was very risque, very taboo. Stuff you're not

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00:22:35.079 --> 00:22:40.349

David Cronenberg - Videodrome

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