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(Originally posted April 2, 2008)

Growing up in the early 1980s, cable televisionwas a boy’s best friend. The cable networks seemed to have endless film libraries and showed new movies nearly every night; boxing and football received extended coverage on HBO and ESPN thanks to shows like “Inside the NFL”; and “parental control” was still an oxymoron, consisting of basically a small gold key that was easily replicated using a paperclip. And few phrases are as universally understood by the male children of the 80s as”Late Night Cinemax.”

It was through cable television that I was introduced to most of the films that bludgeoned my mind into its current shape: Psycho, The Blob, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Alien, Jaws, Blow Out, The Brood, Body Double, The Omen, C.H.U.D., Zapped… And the great thing about cable – you knew the movies would be on again. And again. And again. We couldn’t pause or rewind, but it didn’t matter when you could watch a movie enough times to commit every scene, every line, every gratuitous axe-to-the-face or werewolf transformation or shower scene to memory. And there were always those movies that, no matter where you came into them, once you flipped them on, you had to watch until the end credits. I still get sucked in like this.

One of the films I could never escape and watched a dozen times or more was John Carpenter’s The Thing. A loose remake of The Thing from Another World and based on the short-story “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr., the story involves a group of researchers in Antarctica who are menaced by a shape-changing alien that can assimilate and impersonate other life-forms (full synopsis on Wikipedia). So, why is it a great foray into the dark divide?

• Incredible SFX. Rob Bottin’s work on The Thing is among the best of the decade. The monster’s transformations are genuinely gruesome and disturbing. The SFX also introduced me to Fangoria magazine, my generation’s Famous Monsters of Filmland— I bought my first issue after seeing an image from the film on its cover.
• A relatable cast. Though you learn very little about the characters and their pasts, they all still manage to seem real and tangible. Like the “truckers in space” in Alien, the research station’s crew are likable, flawed, and human. There are no superheroes here, and they all seem as terrified by the situation as the audience, which only makes the film more gripping. And yet, you still wanted to grow up to be a guy like Kurt Russell’s chopper pilot, MacReady.
• Paranoia punctuated by genuine scares. Tons of other movies have featured a monster that can imitate, possess, or replace humans, making it impossible for the characters to trust one another. But I’d argue that few do it as masterfully as The Thing. The “blood test”scene is particularly effective, as MacReady tests each crew member’s blood sample by jabbing a petri dish with a hot wire. During this, the crew members that haven’t been “cleared” are tied up next to one another, angry and afraid. The tension in the scene is almost unbearable, and when the inevitable happens and one of the petri dishes erupts, the room goes nuts.
• Best. Ending. Ever. Two guys drinking in the middle of the Antarctic, with no hope of escape, not knowing if the other is infected… Has yet to be matched.

(Originally Posted March 30, 2008)

I’m starting up a new series of posts about the media that left a lasting impact on me. Not sure why. Maybe so you can scar your children with this stuff too. When I was in sixth or seventh grade, I was selected by my school to be sent to a “writers conference” to meet with and interview published writers. I don’t remember much, not even which writers were there, but they all seemed incredibly old. The only writer I recall talking with told me that I had to “immerse myself in media.” He suggested several movies that I “had to see.” One of these was called Videodrome.

A few weeks later, I had my 12th birthday. My dad had gotten into the habit of renting a beta cassette (I know, right?) or laser disk player and a handful of movies for our birthday sleepovers. One of the movies I asked him to rent was this mysterious Videodrome. I don’t know why Dad didn’t check the rating or even read the description of the movie — maybe he just trusted me — but at about ten o’clock that night, Videodrome left a bulging scar across my brain.

It’s hard to summarize Videodrome. Thankfully, Wikipedia can do that for me, but for the link-impaired, a high-level plot summary goes something like this: Max Renn, a sleazy television executive (played James Woods, natch) is searching for new material for his network when he discovers a plotless torture show (called “Videodrome”) that might actually be snuff tv. Renn begins to hallucinate and eventually learns that the hallucinations are a side-effect of a brain tumor caused by the Videodrome broadcast. After being programmed by Videodrome execs, Renn murders his own partners. He is later reprogrammed by the daughter of an eccentric media professor and goes on to kill the villains who created Videodrome before seemingly committing suicide at the film’s conclusion.

All I really remembered was Debbie Harry as a crazy S&M chick who pierces James Woods’ ear during sex (where was child protective services??? I was 12!), the red clay room where the Videodrome snuff films are filmed, and a scene in which a gun fuses with Woods’ hand. Oh, and there’s a reallycreepy moment when Woods tries to make out with his tv…

Yet for as disturbing as Videodrome is, it actuallyhad a lasting positive impact on me creatively. It was perhaps my first step into the often frightening but exhilarating space between reality and fantasy. Videodrome is now a cult classic and I’m sure entire PhD papers have been written on its cultural relevance and themes. But it’s an important part of my creative development because it actually made me think:

• I experienced a story where the narrator is unreliable and reality can’t really be trusted. This is a well-used convention now, but circa 1985 I hadn’t seen anything like it.
• It left me with big questions. Because the narrator is unreliable, I had to question everything about the story. Does the protagonist really kill himself at the end of the film? In shedding his old flesh, does he destroy Videodrome as his (probably dead) girlfriend instructs?
• It introduced me to David Cronenberg, one of the most challenging directors of the past fifty years. Nearly every Cronenberg movie has left a lasting impact on me (especially The Brood, Dead Ringers, and The Fly).
• It has mature and complex themes. Though my 12-year old mind had no idea what a “theme” was, nearly every movie I had seen up to that point was focused on relatively simple themes, such as the battle of good versus evil. But Videodrome’s”betrayal of the body” theme (which recurs in many of Cronenberg’s films, and is most graphically depicted in The Fly) is deeply disturbing and forces the viewer to confront an inescapable aspect of the human condition (we get sick and die).
• The “media will control you mind” theme has also become extremely well-tread, but Videodrome was the first movie that made me even start to consider the power of tv (and its possible negative effects).
• It was the first film that made me consider that an antagonist could be something other than a flesh-and-blood villain. In many ways, the pervasive, tumor-inducing broadcast of Videodrome is a precursor to the Matrix and similar disembodied threats.
• It’s about an anti-hero. Max Rennis a far cry from Luke Skywalker, with virtually no redeeming qualities. Yet the story still draws you in, and somehow you end up rooting for him. This taught me that stories can have all types of heroes, and sometimes those with the greatest flaws are the most interesting.
• It gave me courage to watch other films. I think that most of the kids at the sleepover got up and went into another room at some point during Videodrome and didn’t finish watching it. Only my younger brother (you should see how weird he turned out…) and I sat through the whole thing. Afterwards, I realized that if I could make it through something as genuinely disturbing as Videodrome, I could probably watch nearly anything that aired on cable television, including other “bad influences.”

So, I guess that weird and incredibly irresponsible writer was right. Even though I was only 12, I really needed to see Videodrome.