Videodrome

Videodrome Quotes

A sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a very unusual fashion when he acquires a new kind of programming for his station.

Max Renn: Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!
Rena King: What about it, Nicki? Is it socially positive?
Nicki Brand: Well, I think we live in overstimulated times. We crave stimulation for its own sake. We gorge ourselves on it. We always want more, whether it's tactile, emotional or sexual. And I think that's bad.
Max Renn: Then why did you wear that dress?
Nicki Brand: Sorry?
Max Renn: That dress. It's very stimulating.
[looks at Rena]
Max Renn: And it's red. You know what Freud would've said about that dress.
Nicki Brand: And he would've been right. I admit it. I live in a highly excited state of overstimulation.
Max Renn: Listen, I'd really like to take you out to dinner tonight...
[last lines]
Max Renn: Long live the new flesh.
Brian O'Blivion: The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye.
Brian O'Blivion: The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena: the Videodrome. The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore, the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television.
Max Renn: [just before Harlan explodes] See you in Pittsburgh.
Rena King: Nicki, do you think Max is a menace to society?
Nicki Brand: He's certainly a menace to me.
Max Renn: Do you know a show called 'Videodrome'?
Masha: Video what?
Max Renn: Videodrome. Like video circus, video arena. Do you know it?
Masha: No.
Max Renn: It's just torture and murder. No plot, no characters. Very, very realistic. I think it's what's next.
Masha: Then God help us.
Masha: Videodrome. What you see on that show, it's for real. It's not acting. It's snuff TV.
Max Renn: I don't believe it.
Masha: So, don't believe.
Max Renn: Why do it for real? It's easier and safer to fake it.
Masha: Because it has something that you don't have, Max. It has a philosophy. And that is what makes it dangerous.
Brian O'Blivion: Television is reality, and reality is less than television.
Max Renn: What's that? You let someone cut you?
Nicki Brand: Yeah, what do you think?
Max Renn: Well, I don't know.
Nicki Brand: Would you like to try a few things?
[First line]
Man's voice on television: Civic TV. The one you take to bed with you.
Barry Convex: You'll forgive me if I don't stay around to watch. I just can't cope with the freaky stuff.
Barry Convex: Open up for me, Max. I've got something I want to play for you.
Nicki Brand: Got any porno?
Max Renn: You serious?
Nicki Brand: Yeah. It gets me in the mood.
[looks through casettes]
Nicki Brand: What's this? "Videodrome"?
Max Renn: Torture. Murder.
Nicki Brand: Sounds great.
Max Renn: Ain't exactly sex.
Nicki Brand: Says who?
Max Renn: [Handing Bianca the videotape] Careful... it bites.
Brian O'Blivion: [to Max Renn] Your reality is already HALF video hallucination. If you're not careful, it will become TOTAL hallucination. You'll have to learn to live in a very strange new world.
[about violence]
Max Renn: Better on T.V. than on the streets.
Max Renn: D'you want a cup of coffee?
Harlan: I don't work with you for the money.
Max Renn: I know that. 'Cause piracy's never just for the money, is it?
Masha: [to Max] Videodrome is something for you to leave alone.
Brian O'Blivion: After all, there is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there?
Max Renn: Have you been hallucinating lately?
Harlan: No. Should I be?
Max Renn: Yes, you should be.
Max Renn: I'm looking for something that'll... break through. You know?
Brian O'Blivion: I believe that the growth in my head-this head-this one right here. I think that it is not really a tumor... not an uncontrolled, undirected little bubbling pot of flesh... but that it is in fact a new organ... a new part of the brain.
Harlan: North America's getting soft, patrón, and the rest of the world is getting tough. Very, very tough. We're entering savage new times, and we're giong to have to be pure and direct and strong, if we're going to survive them. Now, you and this cesspool you call a television station and your people who wallow around in it, your viewers who watch you do it, they're rotting us away from the inside. We intend to stop that rot.
Barry Convex: I think that you'll find a little S&M will be necessary to trigger off a good healthy dose of hallucinations.
Max Renn: Tell me about my 'Videodrome' problem.
Bianca O'Blivion: My father knows much more about it than I do.
[Biana hands Max a pile of videotapes]
Bianca O'Blivion: Listen to him.
Brian O'Blivion: Max, I'm so glad you came.
Brian O'Blivion: After a while, I started hallucinating, and developed a tumor. I believe the visions caused the tumor, and not the other way around.
Nicki Brand: I live in a highly excited state of overstimulation.
Max Renn: I am the Video Word made Flesh.
Max Renn: I want you to stay away from it! Those mondo weirdo video guys, they've got unsavory connections, they play rough. Rougher than even Nicki Brand wants to play... You know, in Brazil, Central America, those kinds of places, making underground videos is considered a subversive act. They execute people for it. In Pittsburgh, who knows?
Max Renn: [on hearing that Brian may send a tape, rather than meet] If he does, that's going to make conversation a little difficult.
Bianca O'Blivion: My father has not engaged in conversation for at least twenty years. The monologue is his preferred mode of discourse.

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