Simultaneously stupefying and boring, Videodrome is too extreme a blunder to survive exposure to a justifiably disillusioned horror-movie public.

Film is dotted with video jargon and ideology which proves more fascinating than distancing. And Cronenberg amplifies the freaky situation with a series of stunning visual effects.

Never coherent and frequently pretentious, the film remains an audacious attempt to place obsessive personal images before a popular audience -- a kind of Kenneth Anger version of Star Wars.

The movie’s most fascinating element is the uncanny way in which it has predicted the 21st century cycle in infotainment.