20 Greatest Horror Movies Of The 80s
8. Videodrome
If David Cronenberg's update of The Fly contained more than a nod to classic Hollywood melodrama, his film Videodrome offered a straight up dose of pure and unadulterated horror featuring some of the most disturbing scenes of his career.
James Woods stars as Max Renn, the owner of a small cable television station who is introduced to a televisions show from Asia which appears to be a snuff movie showing torture and murder, becoming convinced this is going the be "the next big thing". As he digs deeper into the sordid, sadomasochistic world he uncovers political corruption, and a plan to use the airwaves as a mass mind control project.
There's a sense of dread and despair in Videodrome unlike most horror films of the decade, and here the body horror is as strong as you'll ever see it. Inserting video tapes into a torso and a strange, biomatter weapon (with echoes of Cronenberg's later film eXistenZ) are just two of the twisted sights Cronenberg conjures up from his dark imagination.