Videodrome. I thought this was destined to be a cult classic*. On the surface, one may think “well of course it didn’t age well, it’s about late night cable tv and within years, we all realized the real dangers were from the internet and other networked, digital entertainment.” I think there was some really unfortunate timing here, if the movie had come out maybe even five years earlier, it’s portrayal of the political issues related to violence and control of the media and who benefits would be easier to relate to technologies that came later. As it is, a lot of it feels a day late and a dollar short.
After thinking about this, I amused myself for a while imaging the Videodrome show (the show within the movie, not the movie itself) being released today, on youtube, and thinking about the comments being worse than the content of the show. After wading through thirteen pages of youtube comments from bored teenagers, the weapons corporation would have thrown up their hands in defeat.
- when I was checking the dates, I was a little surprised to realize that a lot of critics think this has held up well, so I will just say that I personally don’t think it aged well even though I expected it to.