Catalogue classic

A new 4K restoration finds Anton van Beek back under the spell of David Cronenberg's 1983 sci-fi horror masterpiece. Long live the new flesh...

- Anton van Beek

Videodrome → Ultra HD Blu-ray, Arrow Video

BY THE EARLY 1980s Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg found his career at a crossroads. The filmmaker's formative low-budget features, including Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977) and The Brood (1979), had managed to bridge the gap between exploitation and art house cinema with their mix of transgressive body-horror and philosophical underpinnings, but he hadn't yet graduated to the 'big league'. Then came the success of his head bursting sci-fi thriller Scanners (1981), which made Hollywood sit up and pay attention.

Among the offers that came the director's way in the wake of Scanners were opportunities to helm Flashdance (1983) and Return of the Jedi (1983), which he turned down. It's interesting to imagine what Cronenberg might have brought to such big-budget projects (Top Gun was another that would land on his desk) but he wasn't - at this point - interested in directing somebody else's material, not when he had one of his own ideas percolating. 

Hollywood was still keen to tap into the talent of Cronenberg, however, which is how Universal Pictures ended up entering the disturbing world of Videodrome.

Network nightmare

'I think it's amazing that Universal Pictures went with Videodrome, produced it and distributed it,' revealed the filmmaker in the 1992 book Cronenberg on Cronenberg. 'They approved the project on a one-page description and were co-investors... In retrospect I realise how extraordinary and unusual it was; first, that they even partially financed it - they were one of the most conservative major studios - and second, that they allowed it to continue once they saw what it was becoming. Generally, the system destroys pictures like Videodrome before they get to the public.'