Videodrome (Criterion) DVD

• 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono (English)
• New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound and enhanced for widescreen televisions; Audio commentaries by director David Cronenberg, actors James Woods and Deborah Harry and director of photography Mark Irwin; Camera, a short film starring Videodrome's Les Carlson, written and directed by David Cronenberg in 2000 as part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the Toronto Film Festival; Forming the New Flesh, a new half-hour documentary featurette by video effects artist Michael Lennick about the creation of Videodrome's landmark video and prosthetic makeup effects, featuring new interviews with special effects artist Rick Baker and others; Samurai Dreams, the complete and unedited faux Japanes AV feature seen in the film; Fear on Film, a 26-minute roundtable discussion from 1981 between filmmakers David Cronenber, John Carpenter, John Landis, and Mick Garris about censorship, special effect makeup and horror cinema; Original theatrical trailers, plus a promotional featurette; Stills gallery featuring hundreds of rare behind-the-scenes production photos, many never before scene; Essays by film critic Carrie Rickey and Videodrome expert Tim Lucas; Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition.

Director: David Cronenberg
James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Les Carlson

When Max Renn goes looking for edgy new shows for his sleazy cable TV station, he stumbles across the pirate broadcast of a hyperviolent torture show called Videodrome. As he unearths the origins of the program, he embarks on a hallucinatory journey into a shadow world of righ-wing conspiracies, sadomasochistic sex games, and bodily transformation. Renn's ordinary life dissolves around him, and he finds himself at the center of a conflict between opposing factions in the struggle to control the truth behind the radical human future of "the New Flesh."