Venus

Venus is a well put together film about a go go dancer making way with a bag of stolen drugs to her estranged sisters apartment only to find out that their is a much more sinister plot within the building.

The cinematography is absolutely ace, despite there being dark scenes we can clearly make out what is happening so major props to the lighting crew and the colorist ontop of the D. P.

The acting is pretty damn good all around, nothing pulls you out of the film and it's all believeable.

The special effects with the blood and gore was pretty awesome too, some of the cgi blood was a bit noticeable but the make-up department definitely helped with the practical to make it blend better.

I would say the only annoying factor with this film was the cgi planets, this kind of took me out the film as well as the weird piano motif when the sister and daughter have emotional moments together.

All in all I would say this is a great film to spend your time with alone and with the lights off.

Jaume Balagueró is a filmmaker who loves telling stories about horrors that take place in apartments. REC, REC², Sleep Tight, To Let, Inquilinos (short).. the list goes on. Venus is a genre-bender with heavy inclinations towards cosmic horror (loosely inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Dreams in the Witch House"). Venus begins as a crime-drama about stolen drugs, though the film drops early hints about the horrors that await the protagonist Lucía. Things aren't what they seem, and there are mysteries surrounding the building she takes refuge in, i.e. Her sister's residence. Fernando Navarro's writing gives nearly equal footing to both crime and horror angles, but I was obviously more invested in the latter.

The visual style of Balagueró is still something to watch out for, and when coupled with practical effects, the outcome in certain scenes is a Lovecraftian horror fan's wet dream. That said, the way both stories eventually blend into one isn't really smooth, and as a viewer, you have no choice but to lean into the absurdity of it all. Ester Expósito gets a meaty role and she's the only one in the film to come out looking absolutely badass. The other characters purely exist as victims or villains. The finale will leave some viewers perplexed (like, THAT'S IT?) whereas some may deem it poetic justice.

Well shot Spanish mystery horror with elements of a slasher and action movie: drugdealers, ancient witchcraft and mysterious eclipse converge in modern Madrid and create a nice atmospheric mix, a little condensed ending but the matter is rather on a small budget, the actors especially Ester Expósito main character and Magüi Mira played very well but the rest of the cast also tried. Special effects are certainly not outstanding but not the worst of them, interesting finds in the form of interpretation of the magical guardian. The creators gave as much as they could and it turned out very well, I recommend giving a chance.

Whoa! A LOT of blood, violence, gangsters, drugs, twisted witches and enough WTF moments. And lead Ester Expósito is gorgeous.

Also inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. This was a BLAST. Well directed and shot. Well acted and an interesting watch throughout. I watched it in Spanish and my Spanish is far from good. But Venus was easy enough to follow and has shades of Rosemary's Baby, Hellraiser, and even for some reason reminded me of Troma's Rabid Grannies, even though it is nothing like that. Venus is a solid film and I was glued. This was fun.

Highly recommended Spanish horror. From the director of REC.

An argument that doesn't seem to be where it's going, and in fact it doesn't know where it's going.

It's the first, bad version of a script that a teenage film student would write in a weekend.

Of course, the ending is not at all predictable, but if it is not at all it is unfortunately for the wrong reason: It is without a doubt the worst part of the film.

It's a bad student scenario.

From the start it doesn't work: a gogo dancer from the "Fabrik" nightclub in Madrid decides to steal pills (the only motive of the film is perhaps to allow the fashionable actress to be sexy while time) in the nightclub where she works and abandoning her car and her cell phone about three meters from the room... to walk to a building from where, inexplicably, she never leaves. Well, after waiting a long time for something exciting to happen, more than three-quarters of the way through the movie, it looks like something is going to happen...

There's satanic cultism in the air, a full moon looks like it's about to trigger an alien invasion, a goddess of evil approaches, and then finally poops, pretty much nothing.

Nothing works, nothing is even correct, it's not horror, it's no longer a thriller, the bad guys seem to come from teletubbies, who are surely smarter!

Ten minutes before the end the heroine, a badass, exclaims: And now we're going to dance; We tell ourselves that at least these last ten minutes will turn into an effective settling of scores against the bad guys, the witches, the monstrous servant, the goddess of evil...

We are treated to a minimalist fight with one of the bad guys, and a shotgun blast at an old woman!

And the ending, yes I'll come back to it again, is so stupid that I felt embarrassed for the director. Because it's hard to believe that the director of Rec could have made such an empty film. Sometimes it's better to retire on time. With such a poorly constructed storyline, it's hard to come up with something decent that can't even be described as cheap teen gore. Another great failure of Spanish cinema which pretends to make horror cinema and puts people to shame.

Don't waste your time on this.