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Sleazy TV exec (James Woods) and his sadomasochist girlfriend (Deborah Harry) are intrigued by the pirate broadcast of a new show that trades in torture and murder until they discover it is being used in a plot to control the minds of consumers. Not that that realization causes Woods to be any less sleazy nor Harry to be any less self-destructive, so good luck finding anyone to root for here. Starts out well, as a mystery-thriller, then devolves (its cult followers would no doubt remove the "d") into a full-blown reality-bender of a horror movie, in which anyone exposed to the show suffers graphic and sometimes grotesque hallucinations. Woods himself is shocked when, among other things, his abdomen develops an organic videotape slot. Cronenberg's fuzzy-headed commentary on the dangers of television (he clearly wasn't trying very hard to make a political point, though, in a vague sort of way, the movie presages torture porn and the rise of sex and violence both on TV and the internet) -- that, combined with characters like Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), who thinks people don't get enough TV, virtually guarantees that this film's only real attraction is its surreal imagery and bizarre absurdities. Well, it has plenty of both. Harry, of course, is more famous for having been the lead singer of the rock group Blondie.
Sleazy TV exec (James Woods) and his sadomasochist girlfriend (Deborah Harry) are intrigued by the pirate broadcast of a new show that trades in torture and murder until they discover it is being used in a plot to control the minds of consumers. Not that that realization causes Woods to be any less sleazy nor Harry to be any less self-destructive, so good luck finding anyone to root for here. Starts out well, as a mystery-thriller, then devolves (its cult followers would no doubt remove the "d") into a full-blown reality-bender of a horror movie, in which anyone exposed to the show suffers graphic and sometimes grotesque hallucinations. Woods himself is shocked when, among other things, his abdomen develops an organic videotape slot. Cronenberg's fuzzy-headed commentary on the dangers of television (he clearly wasn't trying very hard to make a political point, though, in a vague sort of way, the movie presages torture porn and the rise of sex and violence both on TV and the internet) -- that, combined with characters like Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), who thinks people don't get enough TV, virtually guarantees that this film's only real attraction is its surreal imagery and bizarre absurdities. Well, it has plenty of both. Harry, of course, is more famous for having been the lead singer of the rock group Blondie.
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