by Andrew Pope

In David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983), mass media poses as a liberating escape, offering experiences beyond the everyday. Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry) suggests that “We always want more, whether it’s tactile, emotional or sexual,” and the media meets that need. But in Cronenberg’s vision, as much as a liberatory factor it operates as a controlling force, infiltrating and altering the mind and body through insidious means. Max Renn (James Woods), a television executive obsessed with sensational content, becomes the unwitting subject of “Videodrome,” a broadcast signal that induces hallucinations and physical mutations. The result: his torso splits open vaginally, transforming into a videotape port – a visceral metaphor for media’s invasive power – and his reality gradually becomes a total “video hallucination.” 

Cronenberg presents transformation as both a violation and a revelation: Max’s merging with technology grants him a new identity as part of the “new flesh,” but it also erases his autonomy. Max declares in the film’s melancholy, apocalyptic climax, “Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh,” before blowing his brains out – an ambiguous stance that Cronenberg never resolves. Transformation may represent an evolution of humanity, but it comes at the cost of surrendering control to external systems – the Videodrome, the cult-like video church of Brian O’Blivion, with his philosophy that “the battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena: the Videodrome.” And as Nikki says, it’s the philosophy that makes them dangerous.

Sixteen years later, with the millennium coming to an end, Cronenberg was transforming himself. His last two films (M Butterfly, Crash) had been non-horror literary adaptations, and his 21st-century films would continue that evolution away from the obviously fantastical. But before completing that transition, Cronenberg embraced the themes of Videodrome one last time.

eXistenZ (1999) reimagines these themes within the context of video games and virtual reality. Here, Cronenberg shifts from passive media consumption to active participation in simulated worlds. Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a game designer, and Ted Pikul (Jude Law), her skeptical ally, navigate a layered reality of eXistenZ, an ongoing virtual reality game that can be accessed via “bio-ports,” spinal implants that connect players to organic, pulsating game pods. The tactile grotesqueness of these devices mirrors Videodrome’s uncannily throbbing videocassette, but the stakes are the same: once again a media product promises ultimate immersion and freedom, whilst erasing that freedom. The interactive nature of a game may seem a more positive prospect than the passive reception of cable TV signals, but in fact the game subtly dictates the players’ actions, eroding their agency even while promising to promote it. The freedom of the game isn’t a step up from the limits of cable TV – it’s just a better way to sell control.  

Ted’s initial discomfort with his bio-port — “I have this phobia about having my body penetrated surgically” — reflects broader anxieties about technology’s encroachment on the self. As the game progresses, the distinction between reality and simulation dissolves, leaving the characters disoriented. As with The Matrix, the philosophical warnings of postmodernists such as Jean Baudrillard concerning hyperreality — where simulations replace and nullify the real — are laced through the film’s narrative. Physical transformation in eXistenZ prefigures psychological transformation, which in turn offers a seductive escape from reality – but ultimately subjects players to the game’s hidden controls.

Biology serves as the ultimate foundation of control in both films, grounding their transformations in flesh and mutation. In Videodrome, the body becomes a site of conquest, with enforced physical mutations reflecting Max’s loss of autonomy. eXistenZ is more explicit about the integration of biology with technology, using bio-mechanical devices to symbolize the intimate and uneasy merging of human and machine. This focus on the body as a locus of control underscores Cronenberg’s interest in the tension between organic life and psychological “reality”. In Videodrome, O’Blivion claims “reality is less than television,” and “there is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there?”

Capitalism looms as a driving force behind the systems of control depicted in both films. In Videodrome, Max embodies the profit-driven ethos of the television industry, pursuing shock value to captivate audiences. His downfall critiques the commodification of human attention, showing how capitalist imperatives strip individuals of agency. eXistenZ, meanwhile, critiques the gaming industry’s commodification of play. The bio-mechanical game pods, marketed as revolutionary, intrude upon players’ bodies and minds, aligning with Karl Marx’s notion of alienation. In both films, Cronenberg suggests that capitalism exploits transformation, turning it into a mechanism for control rather than liberation.

Videodrome (1983) (L), eXistenZ (1999) (R)

Religion also emerges as a framework for understanding the tension between transformation and control. In Videodrome, the concept of the “new flesh” adopts a quasi-spiritual significance, presenting transformation as a form of salvation via the ‘Cathode Ray Mission’. Yet this salvation demands submission to the Videodrome signal, raising questions about the cost of transcendence. Similarly, eXistenZ frames its game world as a religious experience, with Allegra as a messianic figure. Her status as both creator and manipulator of the game mirrors the dynamics of faith in a technological age, where followers surrender control to omnipotent systems in search of meaning.

In Videodrome, it is the philosophy of the Videodrome that is the malevolent force at work, with capitalist concerns being associated more with the protagonist, Renn – they are his weakness rather than his opponents’ strength. In eXistenZ, however, the game is primarily a capitalist endeavor, and is previewed to its players in an abandoned church, suggesting that capitalism has superseded religion as the antagonistic force

Wherever the threat of external control comes from, the question remains – can it be resisted? Cronenberg’s characters’ journeys are marked by transformation. But the transformation in Cronenberg’s films is neither purely liberating nor wholly oppressive. Instead, it occupies a liminal space where freedom and control coexist in tension. In Videodrome, transformation opens Max to new possibilities but leaves him subservient to the Videodrome signal. In eXistenZ, the game world promises liberation from reality’s constraints but traps its players within its rules. This ambivalence reflects Cronenberg’s nuanced view of technological progress: transformation offers an escape from existing systems of control but introduces new forms of domination in their place.

David Cronenberg’s filmography delves deeply into the twin forces of transformation and control. Across his works, control manifests through biology, religion, and capitalism, which impose limits on individuality and agency. Transformation, by contrast, emerges as an ambiguous gambit: it may offer liberation from control while simultaneously exposing individuals to new forms of domination. This duality is central to Videodrome and eXistenZ as they explore how transformation complicates the human condition and redefines the boundaries of identity.

Cronenberg’s use of body horror to explore these themes contrasts with that of other directors in the genre. John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), for example, uses grotesque transformations to externalize paranoia and alienation, depicting the monstrous as an external threat to humanity. Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) explores transformation through a focus on supernatural pain and pleasure. Cronenberg, by contrast, grounds transformation in techno-scientific realism, focusing on the interplay of biology, psychology, and external systems of control. His work reflects the influence of postmodern thought, presenting transformation as a deeply personal phenomenon through which an individual negotiates their relationship to their own reality.

That is the ambiguous role that transformation can take in the interplay between liberation and control. Biology, religion, technology, and capitalism serve as forces that shape and constrain human experience, while transformation offers a potential, yet fraught, escape. Videodrome and eXistenZ both suggest that as technology advances, systemic threats and opportunities multiply and humanity’s boundaries grow more fluid – leaving individuals perpetually caught between the promise of liberation and the threat of domination, granted just enough free will “to make it interesting” – but no more*. Cronenberg’s work challenges us to consider whether the promises of transformation that are broadcast to us are truly the path to freedom—or merely another layer of control that will always leave you wondering, at any moment of supposed liberation, “Hey, tell me the truth… are we still in the game?”

• This is still more agency than Seth Brundle is granted in The Fly (1986) – his transformation is one of de-evolution, entirely unanticipated and, once started, irreversible. As he says: “I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over… and the insect is awake.”