What actually happens
Max orders more of the torture channel
Max Renn runs CIVIC-TV, a Toronto UHF station built on sensational programming. Harlan, who runs the station's unauthorized satellite dish, shows him Videodrome, a show with no plot, supposedly broadcast from Malaysia, in which victims are tortured and eventually murdered. Max thinks it is the future of television and tells Harlan to start recording it. Nicki Brand, a sadomasochistic radio host who is sleeping with Max, is aroused by an episode. She learns the show actually comes from Pittsburgh, goes to audition and never returns. Max asks a softcore pornographer named Masha to help him investigate. She says the footage is real and is a philosophical movement in itself, and that a media theorist named Brian O'Blivion knows about it.
Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.
A homeless shelter with excellent reception
Max finds O'Blivion at a homeless shelter where vagrants sit through marathon television sessions. Bianca, O'Blivion's daughter, runs the mission and backs his idea that television should replace daily life. Max watches a videotape in which O'Blivion calls Videodrome a battleground for control of the minds of North America. Max then hallucinates Nicki speaking to him, and his television swells as he kisses the screen. Back at the shelter, Bianca explains that Videodrome carries a signal that causes malignant brain tumors, which her father saw as part of his vision, since he thought hallucinations were a higher form of reality. When O'Blivion learned the signal would be used for evil purposes, he tried to stop his partners and was killed by his own invention.
A video player where the stomach should be
That night Max hallucinates putting his handgun into a slit in his own stomach. This is the body-horror scene people mention, it comes in the middle, and it is a hallucination. Barry Convex, the producer of Videodrome, contacts him. Convex's employer, the Spectacular Optical Corporation, sells eyeglasses and is really a cover for an arms company, and he has a device that records Max's hallucinations. In one, Max imagines whipping Nicki on the Videodrome set, and her image turns into Masha. He wakes up and finds Masha's dead body in his bed at home. He calls Harlan to photograph it as evidence, but by the time Harlan arrives, the body is gone.
Everyone gets a new job from a Betamax
Max goes to Harlan's studio to watch the latest Videodrome broadcast. Harlan admits that he and Convex have been trying to recruit Max. They want to end the cultural decay of North America by using Videodrome to kill anyone who is too obsessed with sex and violence. Convex puts a brainwashing Betamax tape into Max's torso, and under his control Max murders his business partners at CIVIC-TV. He tries to kill Bianca, but she stops him by showing a tape of Nicki's death on the Videodrome set. Bianca reprograms him to serve her father's cause, with the slogan "Long live the new flesh." At her orders he kills Harlan, whose hand goes into the slit in Max's torso and turns into a grenade that explodes. Max also kills Convex, whose body bursts into tumors once Max fires at him with a pistol that has fused to his hand.
The ending, explained
Wanted for murder, Max hides on an abandoned boat in the Port Lands. Nicki appears on the television, says he has damaged Videodrome, and tells him that finishing it means leaving the old flesh behind and moving up to the next level. The screen plays a picture of Max putting a bullet in his own head, and then the set explodes. Max copies what he just saw, says the slogan "Long live the new flesh," and then shoots himself.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Videodrome scary?
Videodrome scores 6 out of 10 with a high dread level and a gore level of 4. The fear is body horror and hallucination, and it has no jump scares.
How does Videodrome end?
Max destroys Videodrome's backers on Bianca's orders, hides on a boat, and follows a vision of Nicki by shooting himself in the head.
Does the dog die in Videodrome?
No dog dies in Videodrome.
Is there a post-credits scene in Videodrome?
No. Videodrome has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
What does the Videodrome signal do in Videodrome?
In Videodrome, the signal gives people malignant brain tumors, which cause hallucinations. Brian O'Blivion saw that as part of his vision, and Barry Convex wants to use it to kill people he thinks are too obsessed with sex and violence.
