10 Great Movies That Had AWFUL Test Screenings
1. Videodrome
Sometimes a film test-screens so poorly there's not much more to do than just laugh, throw your hands up and accept that you've made a wildly unwieldy, stridently un-commercial beast.
And that's precisely what happened with David Cronenberg's stunning body horror film Videodrome, a test screening of which was, in Cronenberg's own words, "the most disastrous screening you can imagine."
Recently feedback cards from this screening were posted online, and they sure hold nothing back alright. One said, "I fail to understand what would be accomplished by releasing such a movie on the public. What sort of person would enjoy it."
Other viewers called it "pretty disgusting," criticised its "plotless sex," and most hilariously of all, one simply scrawled "SUCKED" across their feedback sheet.
Ultimately little was done to reduce Videodrome's transgressive content in reaction to the test screening - rather, Cronenberg restored about 10 minutes' worth of scenes whose exclusion left portions of the story "totally incomprehensible."