10 Perfect Horror Movies About Hollywood

One of the first films by body horror maestro David Cronenberg to receive a decent budget, 1983’s Videodrome remains remarkably fresh today, down to both its reliance on still-grizzly physical effects and its investigation of the depths to which we’ll sink for increasingly extreme entertainment.

It stars a perfectly cast James Woods as Max Renn, the president of a TV network that specialises in grotty sex and violence. Forever on the hunt for button-pushing content, he receives a tape of a show called Videodrome, purportedly from the Philippines, which depicts incredibly realistic, totally plotless violence.

It turns out it’s realistic for a reason: it’s real, and it’s not coming from the Philippines, but Pittsburgh. As Max wonders if he’s crossed a line, the film takes increasingly murky turns into Manchurian Candidate-style mind control, conspiracies, and, of course, weird stuff happening to the human body.

Videodrome is a pacy and joyfully nasty film whose questions about why we’re so attracted to viscera remain worth asking today, and the effects by the legendary Rick Baker still look amazing.