So, which of Max’s hallucinations were real, and which were fake? Well, it’s possible that everything that Max experienced was a delusion, but there are several things that seem to be definitively real and others that almost certainly took place inside the protagonist’s head. However, not all of the surreal moments are firmly hallucinatory.
One of the first inexplicable moments in the film — although not necessarily a surreal one — is when the supposedly deceased Professor O’Blivion addresses Max by name. How did he know his name if he was already dead when his daughter gave Max the tape? Well, the tape seems to have been infused with the Videodrome program, which bends the viewer’s reality and fuses it with the television. So, while it’s possible that O’Blivion foretold Max’s involvement in the conspiracy, it’s more likely that Max imagined himself being addressed.
Of course, the film takes a sharp turn later in this same scene, when Max makes out with the television. The seedy programmer is completely seduced by the sexuality of television. It’s an important metaphorical moment and it is meant to read as a hallucination, but the line between illusion and reality gets more blurred from there on out.
When Max sticks a gun into his chest cavity, seemingly out of perverse curiosity, he casually chooses violence. Whether or not it was a figment of Max’s imagination, this scene represents that his proclivity towards darkness is allowing violent programs like Videodrome to control him and force him to murder his partners. The double assassination appears on television news, seemingly unbeknownst to Max, which suggests that it was real and not a hallucination. However, the gun being fused to his arm could have been his imagination.
Source link