 The president of the Civic TV - channel 83, Max Renn (James Wood), is always looking for new cheap and erotic movies for his cable television. When his employee Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) decodes a pirate video broadcast showing torture, murder and mutilation called Videodrome, Max becomes obsessed to get these movies for his channel. He contacts his supplier Masha (Lynne Gorman) and asks her to find the responsible for the transmission. A couple of days later, Masha tells that Videodrome is real, actually snuff movies. Max s sadomasochist girlfriend Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry) decides to travel to Pittsburgh to have an audition to the show. Max investigates further, and through a video of the expert Professor Brian O Blivion (Jack Creley), he learns that that TV screen would be the retina of the mind s eye, being part of the brain, and Videodrome transmission creates a brain tumor in the viewer, changing the reality in video hallucination.