Venom - Biss der Teufelsschlangen

Jim Gillespie transforms "Backwater" from computer game to horror movie with undeniable flair. Venom takes the best elements of "Backwater" and builds upon them to create an entertaining, if ultimately ridiculous, slasher film. If you don't spend too much time thinking about the plot and manage to overlook the general lunacy, Venom offers 90 minutes of dumb fun.

As a horror fan, the most interesting aspect of the film for me was the joining of two horror sub-genres (for want of a better description) - the voodoo/hoodoo and slasher genres. There are better voodoo films, Wes Craven's "The Serpent and the Rainbow" comes to mind, and certainly many better slasher films, but it was fun to watch the director mix the genres.

Ray, originally known as "Jangles" in the computer game, makes for an interesting villain. He's the town outcast, who dies while trying to rescue a voodoo priestess from a car crash. Unfortunately, the old lady's possessed snakes attack Ray and he turns into a voodoo powered zombie with a really bad attitude. Ray is no Freddy Krueger or Jason Vorhees, but he's also a step up from most of the clowns polluting American horror movies these days. Ray's weapon of choice is a crowbar and he busily uses it to impale, spear and slash anyone he comes across.

The film also gets extra credit for having Bijou Phillips in the cast. I have no idea why this woman isn't a bigger star, she manages to steal every movie that she appears in. Bijou doesn't have a big role and she really is way too cool to be believable as a small town bimbo. However, she is a beacon in the sea of pretty but wooden actors that make up the rest of the cast.

The film starts well but becomes increasingly improbable. The character of Cece is so idiotic that it defies belief - Apparently every resident of Louisiana keeps a spare voodoo priestess robe in their wardrobe. Oh, and nice idea to use your dead friend as a voodoo doll. The director also gets carried away with CGI effects as the film progresses and spends far too much time making snake eyes move under Ray's skin than concentrating on the good, old fashioned gore that makes the first half of the film so enjoyable.

The film's finale is fairly predictable and by then I had lost interest. Nevertheless, Venom is a fun horror film and should please less discerning genre fans.

Of course this is no genre classic but once you've seen some more typical slasher flicks of this decade, you have to conclude that this movie is not all too bad in the long run. Nothing too memorable but just good enough to watch it.

People tend to call these type of movies new age horror but fact is that these type of movies have been around since the '70's, in which a bunch of hot looking teenagers are all getting killed one-by-one by a maniac/monster. Not much has changed since the '70's, except for its style and look.

Storywise this movie is of course very formulaic in every way thinkable. It's actually a very simple written story, in which basically nothing out of the ordinary happens and everything progresses and happens by the book. It's the type of screenplay that makes you go think; Hey! I could have written something like this! The story is perhaps the movie disappointing aspect of the movie, since otherwise this is basically a fine and well made movie.

I liked the movie its style. It kept the movie going, even though when nothing was happening in the movie. It makes sure that you never get bored. This is also thanks to the editing by Paul Martin Smith, who is a good editor but hasn't really been given good movies yet to proof his skills to the world. The directing was good and fresh and it seems to me that Jim Gillespie has some talent as a director, even though he hasn't really showed it with his movies yet. Perhaps he needs to stop working with Kevin Williamson, perhaps then he will get some better movie propositions to direct. Ever since "Scream" Kevin Williamson hasn't done a decent thing for the genre anymore but he's still active in the business, probably because he is the guy who wrote "Scream". For this movie he serves as a producer. He also wrote the previous Gillespie directed movie "I Know What You Did Last Summer", which became a success, though probably only because it got released so shortly after the success of "Scream" and the genre was hot and popular again at that time.

This is not the type of horror movie that should ever scare you, it's more a movie that entertains with its horror, perhaps of the reason that everything happens in such a predictable way. But Jim Gillespie obviously understands the genre though and knows what is important. So there is some gore and good make-up effects as well as a good 'killer'. You don't really ever start to care about the rest of the characters though, mainly because they remain so superficial and obviously also aren't being played by the most talented actors.

The movie brings zombie movies back to its roots; Voodoo. The earliest zombie movies, from the '20's on, always featured voodoo themes, whenever zombies were involved with the main story. Just too bad that the didn't really used much of the voodoo concepts to make this movie a bit more interesting and original to watch.

It's enjoyable enough for the fans of the genre and certainly not as bad as everyone tries to make you believe it is.

6/10

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I saw this movie at a screening as well and it must have been a different version than the reviewer who thought it was "pure $hite". While the acting for the most part is typical teenager and a little disappointing except for the bad guy, the film looks fantastic, the actions sequences are great as well as the kills, some of which were hard to watch due to their realism. In this version at least, the cheesy special effects seem to be gone or at least vastly improved from what the other reviewer saw. It moves pretty well except for a few scenes of obligatory explanations regarding the voodoo deal and "teen angst", but there are a couple of really good scares as well as a good sustained overall tension throughout. The kills are brutal for the most part with one exception thats kind of lame, but the fight sequence close to the end is especially effective and looks just great as well as what has to be some new scenes, possibly even a new ending, since the lighting and overall look is so different from the rest of the film, but it still looks great. In my humble opinion it's definitely worth seeing and an R rating based on the blood and gore if thats what you expect from a horror movie. Gillespie definitely knows how to make an audience squirm.

Boredom + watching VENOM. Actually, I was surprised that I enjoyed this. It is your typical beautiful boys & girls safe horror but it does have a couple of things going for it. First, it has a nice, original voodoo plot and great Southern atmosphere (it was filmed in Louisiana; Miramax dumped it in limited release after Hurricane Katrina...huh?). Second, it runs a quick 87 minutes. Finally, the film has a vicious streak in it. For example the end takes place in a underground vault. The possessed killer keeps the bodies of his victims in a pile. To escape capture the young heroine hides among the bodies. Her unconscious boyfriend is thrown on top of her. Later she has to witness her boyfriend wakes up and gets a screwdriver in the brain right in front of her eyes. Nothing groundbreaking but for a Dimension release, where it is expected the young lovers both survive, it certainly is. Director Jim Gillespie also did I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. It is kinda sad that it is 10 years later and he has come back full circle with his only "major" accomplishment in between being Stallone's D-TOX.

***May Contain Spoilers***

This movie is a pleasant surprise. While it is marketed to resemble a dozen movies similar to it, Venom has better than average plot development, an effectively eerie mood, and good suspense. The actors are unknowns, but they are believable. The film also avoids many horror movie clichés that would have otherwise dragged it down to a lower level.

Venom is evocative of many Wes Craven movies, especially Cursed, where another kind of "monster" is out attacking young people. In both, there is constant mayhem and suspense and the plots are easy to follow and moves quickly. I enjoyed the voodoo subtext here and even wished the story explained more of it and its role in motivating the killer.

Well worth a view on cable or DVD.