Long Live The New Flesh

Videodrome
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
My 225th night on the lot at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater was spent with one of the all-time cult classics and the movie that introduced me to body horror, Videodrome.

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern

The inaugural Thursday Thread-Up series has been amazing.  So far, I've gotten to see Eraserhead, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Easy Rider, Repo Man, The Princess Bride, and Motel Hell, and the eighth movie in the series (and the 8th punch on my card) was last night's Videodrome.  Upcoming Thursday night screenings include The Last Picture Show, Deranged, The Shining, Up In Smoke, and A Clockwork Orange, and there are many other Thursday nights on the calendar which have yet to be announced.

While there have been some hot and humid nights on the lot in 2024, we've gotten lucky this season when it comes to avoiding rain.  In fact, I think this was the first time since Opening Weekend that I've had to watch the whole movie from inside of the car.

There was a video introduction by Tim Lucas prior to the start of the film.  He is the editor of Video Watchdog and is the author of many books, audio commentaries, and podcasts relating to cult cinema, and he was invited by David Cronenberg to spend a few days on the set of Videodrome while it was being filmed.

I've got a love/hate relationship when it comes to these video introductions.  Some of them are a lot of fun (Jon Gries intro to Joysticks immediately comes to mind).  Others can feel long and tedious, and they're especially frustrating when they spoil a part of the plot when it's a movie that I'm seeing for the first time.  This wasn't my first time seeing Videodrome, but I'm sorry to say that this intro was not of the short and fun variety.  I'm sure there were plenty of folks on the lot who found what he had to say to be interesting, but I had to turn off the radio after the first few minutes of his introduction.  This is just an opinion, but it might not be a bad idea to play these longer pre-taped discussions after the credits roll rather than before the start of the film.

Videodrome is another movie that I saw for the first time when I worked for Blowout Video when I was a teenager.  I've only watched it two or three times in the years since, and I'd guess that it's been well over ten years since I last saw it.  That is in no way a reflection of how much I enjoyed the film.  I loved it the first time that I saw it, and my appreciation for it has only grown as I've gotten older.  However, when I watch a movie at home that I've seen before, it's usually because I'm doing two or three other things at the same time, so I gravitate to comedies that I can enjoy without really having to keep my eyes on the screen at every minute.  When I have no distractions and am able to give my full attention to what I'm watching, I tend to choose to watch something that I haven't seen before, so a lot of movies get lost in the shuffle.

Seeing Videodrome on 35mm on the big screen at the Mahoning is an experience that I won't forget.  It still blows my mind today, so I can only imagine how audiences reacted to it over 40 years ago when they saw it for the first time.