Showing posts with label David Cronenberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Cronenberg. Show all posts

Monday, January 6, 2020

VIDEODROME (1983)

James Woods is the president of a small television station in Toronto.  He's always looking for something fresh and exciting to feature on his station.  The 24-hour marathons of MAC AND ME just ain't bringing in the ratings anymore, so he starts exploring around using a modded satellite dish that can pick up crap from all over the world.  His latest discovery is a show called "Videodrome" which isn't really a show, but just random people being tortured in an orange room.  Woods become obsessed with Videodrome.  Things go downhill from there...especially when he grows a Betamax player in his stomach.

VIDEODROME is a weird movie.  I remember enjoying it back in the 1980's, but watching it now for this review, it's dated as fook and tame.  A single episode of "Rick and Morty" is way more bizarre.  It's still an interesting ride from a historical perspective.

Opening act that starts out legitimately creepy, dated special effects that still look cool, good acting, medium pace, jumbled up story that doesn't go anywhere, disappointing ending.  VIDEODROME is worth watching, but it's nothing to get excited about.  I would love to see a fucked up remake.  That'd be awesome!

Friday, August 2, 2013

JASON X (2001)

Who in the hell thought it would be a good idea to put Jason in outer space?!  The entire reason the original movies are so awesome is because it's just a simple story about people at and around a camp getting killed in awesome ways by an unstoppable masked psychopath.  Keep it simple stupid!  But oohhh no, instead of Jason stalking cute half-naked teens around a lakeside cabin we gotta have Jason frozen and then discovered in the year 2455 by some nerds on a fuckin friggin motherfuckin field trip to Earth!

Jason soon thaws out and starts killing people in crappy way onboard this crappy looking spaceship.  It's really lame, but then surprisingly it gets even lamer when the students reprogram their android into a battle droid, so now Jason gets upgraded into a cyborg called "Uber-Jason". Somebody literally got paid actual money to write this?!!

Maybe good for a few laughs only, but, as a serious Jason fan, I found the whole thing to be so irreverent that it was actually depressing to see Jason reduced to this kind of rubbish.  Dated special effects, stupid story, dark lighting all over the joint, David Cronenberg cameo, forgettable kills, weak nudity, annoying characters, bad acting,.  Only worth watching to laugh at it.

Part 1 - Friday the 13th (1980)
Part 2 - Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Part 3 - Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
Part 4 - Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Part 5 - Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
Part 6 - Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
Part 7 - Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
Part 8 - Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Part 9 - The Final Friday: Jason Goes to Hell (1993)
Freddy vs Jason (2003)
Remake - Friday the 13th (2009)