I've got something I want to play for you...

Television programmer Max Renn (James Woods) is looking for something new, "something tough" to really pull in an audience that, as he sees it, has grown tired of the same old same old. Softcore Japanese porn isn't going to do it; faux-Greco-Roman period softcore really isn't going to do it. One day, Max thinks he has found his solution in a pirate televison signal his technogeek Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) picks up in his lab.

"Videodrome" consists of nothing but torture and murder as nameless individuals are bound, whipped, and electrocuted on a horrible all too real looking set consisting of little more than electrified red clay walls and a slaughterhouse style grate in the floor that allows water and other fluids to sluice through.

Max becomes obsessed with finding out more about "Videodrome," especially after his new girlfriend, masochistic radio show host Nikki Brand (Debbie Harry) says she wants to "audition" for the show (whose signal Harlan has traced to that home of true industry, Pittsburgh). Max directs his inquires to Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), a Marshall McLuhan type who will only appear on television via videocassettes sent out by his daughter Bianca (Sonja Smits). O'Blivion tells Max that Videodrome contains subliminal signals within its transmission that cause the viewer to hallucinate and eventually develop tumors.

Fearing for not only his mental but also his physical health, Max investigates further. As his hallucinations become more intense and intrusive on his everyday life, he finds himself becoming a pawn being used alternately by the right wing conspirators behind Videodrome, intent on eliminating society's unwanted elements (after all, who would watch a show life this?) and Bianca O'Blivion, who realizes that these people must be stopped.

When David Cronenberg began production on Videodrome in late 1981, he did so without a finished script. As such, the film developed organically as shooting progressed. While certainly a a hectic experience for the director and his loyal crew (virtually everyone behind the scenes were holdovers from Cronenberg's previous two or three films), the finished product bears little or now signs of such last minute rewrites. As he notes in his audio commentary, Videodrome did not start out as a political film but became one as it went along, with more focus on the right-wing conspiracy aspect and less on a hallucinatory free-for-all (though there is certainly no shortage of mind- and body-blowing effects work here). The film ultimately ranks as one of the director's best and most fully realized projects, not only of his early period, but of his whole career. This was his last completely original script until eXistenZ in 1999, the intervening years marked not only by literary adaptations of one stripe or another, but also a key change in personnel, his relationship with cinematographer Mark Irwin ending with The Fly (1986) and the Peter Suschitzky phase beginning with Dead Ringers (1988).

While his work with Suschitzky has a certain visual elegance (for want of a better term), his collaborations with Irwin should certainly not be overlooked, and Criterion's new Videodrome dvd provides the perfect opportunity to understand what he brought to the creative table. In addition to an immaculate transfer of the film, Irwin is present on a commentary track with Cronenberg (though they were recorded separately). He gives a great deal of insight into the work that goes into a relatively low budget production such as this, pointing out lighting techniques both for actors (Harry was particularly hard to light) and sets (how the Kodak stock available at the time could make covering even something as seemingly simple as a black door in an otherwise non-black room a bit of a chore). One leaves his very personable comments with a greater appreciation of his very fine work.

Cronenberg's comments, as to be expected by now, are as intelligent and thoughtful as ever, and not without a humorous moment or two, though as with his films, they are very dry (such as the comment regarding the set for the last scene and how his home is much neater). He goes into the various changes he made both during filming and in editing (there are no deleted scenes, by the way, per his wishes) as well what he feels the actors bring to the table, such as the fact that he expanded Sonja Smits part after being so impressed with her work performance. He also touches on Woods's paranoia during filming, especially in regards to the hallucination-recording helmet Max has to wear in one scene. He refused to put it on, thus the director has a heretofore unrecognized cameo in the movie.

Woods makes no mention of this fact in a separate audio commentary but he still comes across quite well. Woods is a smart guy, and his comments are in that familiar speedy delivery we know from his performances. Debbie Harry is also present on this track; her recollections are much more laid back an anecdotal. Woods certainly provides more analysis, but it's nice to have Harry (and her still sexy voice) along for the ride just the same.

The final extra on disc one is Cronenberg's short film Camera. Filmed in 2000 for the Toronto Film Festival's 25th anniversary, Camera stars Videodrome's Les Carlson (he played the Jim Bakker-inspired Barry Convex) in a six-minute monologue about cinema as a group of children invade his home with a large 35mm camera and prepare to film him. Shot in digital video until a final, wonderful change to real film, Camera provides and excellent showcase for Carlson and manages to be both creepy and moving at the same time. Cronenberg's composer Howard Shore supplies a brief, poignant music passage at the end.

Disc two house the remainder of the supplements, and a thorough bunch they are. A thirty minute documentary covers the special effects contributions of Rick Baker and Michael Lennick, going into detail about their still impressive work; there is also an audio-only interview with the two men. There are also two vintage pieces: a behind the scenes doc filmed for Universal, and a round table interview with Cronenberg, John Carpenter, and John Landis conducted in 1982 before the releases of Videodrome, The Thing, and Twilight Zone: The Movie, respectively. The three talk about censorship, the MPAA, and what they feel they can and can not show in their films. Cronenberg comes off best, Landis is his usual hyper self, and Carpenter looks like he could use a beer.

Hundreds of photos are contained in various galleries, covering publicity, production, and special effects. Three trailers try to sell the movie, but not too well; two of the promos are near-legendary in their dated awfulness. The best of the features on the second disc, however, are three video segments collected under the heading of "Bootleg Video." Presented are the unedited clips of "Samurai Dreams," "Videodrome" transmissions, and test footage shot by Lennick for the helmet sequence. All feature commentary by some combination of Cronenberg, Irwin, and Lennick. One of Criterion's regulation Big Fat Booklets rounds out the package with essays by critics Carrie Rickey and Gary Indiana, as well as a long piece by Video Watchdog publisher/editor Tim Lucas, based on visits he made to the set during production.

Criterion's disc is a real knockout, easily rivalling, maybe even surpassing, their earlier work on Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch. The plastic dvd case within the cover sleeve is designed to look like a Betamax videotape. Insertion into one's stomach is not recommended.