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A bizarre (and quite good) hybrid of the Hostage and Nature Gone Wild subgenres, Venom tells the story of a group of criminals that plan to hold a brat hostage for ransom in an attempt to make a quick buck. At first everything goes swimmingly, but soon their plan hits a snag when the criminals realize they are not alone in the house. You see, as it turns this little s*** collected pet snakes but sadly his current order, one for a harmless African garden snake with the black mamba, one of the most deadly snakes in the world. It is a switch-a-roo a la Three’s Company episodes, though here the results are much less hilarious as the snake escapes and begins killing the inhabitants of the house one by one. I saw this back in the day on late nite TV (UHF, natch) and being more scared of the (largely) drunken cast. Revisiting Venom I now see a taut film that manages to generate a great deal of suspense while also offering several fine performances as well as a highly literate (for a genre piece) script. This elevates Venom quite a bit and helps make it, along with Jaws, one of the best Nature Gone Wild films. Don't fret, it's not unlike Alligator, Grizzly, The Wild Beasts and other faves. The best of both worlds, as it were.
At the heart of what makes Venom work as well as it does is Piers Haggard’s (who helmed the horror classic, Blood on Satan's Claw AND Peter Seller's final two films) excellent direction. Originally, the film was set to be directed by Tobe Hooper, but he was forced to leave early on in production. (Speaking of Jaws, Hooper got the Spielberg -produced Poltergeist). Haggard stepped right up at the last minute and did a highly serviceable job. Venom shows a real knack for brilliantly toying with the audience, taking full advantage of the fact that a mamba hide so easily. He makes the wise decision here to avoid the use of jump scares. Instead the movie opts to take on the difficult task of generating its scares through atmosphere. At its heart, Venom is a slow burn film, similar in many ways to the work of Val Lewton during the 1940’s. It is also aided in its ability to generate suspense from two sources as both the Hostage and Nature Gone Wild elements work brilliantly with each other, each complimenting the other one to make an overall stronger film. The film is in many respects a small film in the fact that the vast majority of it takes place in a single location, in this case one house - without giving a claustrophobic (or boring) vibe to the movie.
And as an aside and I doubt this was intentional, but it is interesting to see Venom use what was the original idea for Jaws 2. You see rather than being some sort of Slasher movie reworked with a shark rather than a human killer, Jaws 2 was going to be a Crime movie with the shark attacks only happening in the background. I have long wondered what such a movie would have looked like and in many ways Venom is close to being that film.
The cast is terrific, and they all deliver brilliant performances. Check it out:- Klaus Kinski, Sarah Miles (The Servant, Blowup), Susan George (Straw Dogs), Sterling Hayden, Cornelia Sharpe (Busting, Serpico) Nicol Williamson (The Seven per-cent Solution, Excalibur) and Oliver Reed. Kinski perhaps gives the best performance here; it's also a rare example of Kinski giving his all in a genre flick. Lance Holcomb plays the rich kid - he's an okay child actor. Wisely, instead of being overly pre-occupied on The Kid, there's red herrings, double crosses, and good dramatic interplay with the cast - the baddies and the victims. Fleshed out characters and good lines put this over the top.
The score that is quite frightening and helps the film maintain its tension when the snake is off-screen.
One of the pleasures of being a fan of Horror and Exploitation movies is being able to find little gems like this: If you have ever wanted to see Klaus Kinski fight a black mamba, this is a film for you. Check it out!
Great 2k scan, great sound and optional subtitles.
Extras include stills - lobby cards, posters, here and abroad.
Audio Commentary: This Blu-ray release carries over director Piers Haggard's tremendous commentary track from Blue Underground's initial DVD release. It's a well-moderated commentary despite some occasional lulls in the discussion. Haggard is frank about what a deeply troubled film Venom was when he stepped onboard, weaving numerous stories in particular about Kinski and Reed relentlessly butting heads on the set. My favorite has the two of them literally sizing up each other's d****. I also appreciate that Haggard freely acknowledges what doesn't work about Venom, even accepting some of the blame rather than passing it all off on the producers and ousted director. (He confirms that there's not a frame of Hooper's footage to be found in the final cut.) Among the other topics of conversation are the cinematography by Star Wars' Gilbert Taylor, the critical reception to the film, and that there were indeed talks of a potential sequel that obviously never came to pass.
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Mr blonde
Good fun
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2021Verified Purchase
Coldhand luke
Venom
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2020Verified Purchase
D. Laidlaw
this is really good quality and I enjoyed every minute again
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 5, 2014Verified Purchase
Fernando Gomez Belmont
Llegó en perfectas condiciones
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barry mac
"Kidnapping Genre Flick With A Twist"!
Reviewed in Canada on August 15, 2016Verified Purchase
