Venom (2005 film)
Encyclopedia
Venom is a 2005 American voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of underground religious practices which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American...

 horror-of-demonic
Horror-of-demonic
The horror-of-the-demonic film is one of three sub-genres of the horror film that grew out of mid- and late-20th-Century American culture.-Characteristics:...

-film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 starring Agnes Bruckner
Agnes Bruckner
Agnes Bruckner is an American actress. She began acting on television in the late 1990s and has since appeared in seven films, including The Woods, Blue Car, and Murder By Numbers.-Early life:...

, Jonathan Jackson
Jonathan Jackson (actor)
Jonathan Stevens Jackson is an American actor, best known for playing Lucky Spencer, son of supercouple Luke and Laura on the American daytime drama General Hospital...

, Laura Ramsey, Meagan Good
Meagan Good
Meagan Monique Good is an American film and television actress and occasional film producer. Beginning her career at the age of four, Good has appeared in numerous commercials, television shows, feature films, and music videos....

, D.J. Cotrona
D.J. Cotrona
Donald Joseph "D.J." Cotrona is an American actor.-Early life:Cotrona was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father works for a recycling company and his mother is a teacher. He was studying to be a lawyer at Northeastern University in Boston; however, after doing a summer internship at a law...

 and Method Man
Method Man
Clifford Smith , better known by his stage name Method Man is an American hip hop artist, record producer, actor and member of the hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He took his stage name from the 1979 film The Fearless Young Boxer, also known as Method Man. He is one half of the rap duo Method Man...

.

Plot

The story opens with a Creole
Louisiana Creole people
Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...

 woman digging up a small briefcase from the ground in the pouring rain. She then proceeds to get in her car an drive down the Louisiana road. Meanwhile at a local burger joint, high school senior, Eden (Agnes Bruckner
Agnes Bruckner
Agnes Bruckner is an American actress. She began acting on television in the late 1990s and has since appeared in seven films, including The Woods, Blue Car, and Murder By Numbers.-Early life:...

), is working with her best friends, Rachel (Laura Ramsey) and CeCe (Meagan Good
Meagan Good
Meagan Monique Good is an American film and television actress and occasional film producer. Beginning her career at the age of four, Good has appeared in numerous commercials, television shows, feature films, and music videos....

) while the rest of her friends hang around the place. Ricky (Pawel Szajda
Pawel Szajda
Pawel Szajda is a first-generation Polish-American screen and stage actor. He is most recognized for his roles in Under the Tuscan Sun, Generation Kill, and Tatarak.-Heritage:...

) is aimlessly flirting with Patty (Davetta Sherwood
Davetta Sherwood
Davetta Sherwood is an American actress and musician. Sherwood first worked as a child model before venturing into an acting career including appearing in music videos and guest appearances...

) and Tammy (Bijou Phillips
Bijou Phillips
Bijou Lilly Phillips is an American actress, model, and singer. Phillips began her career as a model but soon transitioned herself into acting and singing. When she was 13, she started as a model and became one of the youngest people to grace the cover of Interview Magazine and Italian Vogue....

) by giving them alcohol. Eric (Jonathan Jackson
Jonathan Jackson (actor)
Jonathan Stevens Jackson is an American actor, best known for playing Lucky Spencer, son of supercouple Luke and Laura on the American daytime drama General Hospital...

) and Sean (D.J. Cotrona
D.J. Cotrona
Donald Joseph "D.J." Cotrona is an American actor.-Early life:Cotrona was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father works for a recycling company and his mother is a teacher. He was studying to be a lawyer at Northeastern University in Boston; however, after doing a summer internship at a law...

) talk about important matters until Ray Sawyer (Rick Cramer) pulls up in his tow truck
Tow truck
A tow truck is a vehicle used to transport motor vehicles to another location , or to recover vehicles which are no longer on a drivable surface.Towing services are generally provided by an emergency road service operator...

. Everyone stare and whisper rumors about him while Ray picks his order up. Ray is Sean's biological father. After he leaves, Rachel says how much he scares her, while Tammy flashes Ray while he eats in his truck. After work, Eden begins to bike home alone, but Eric catches up to her to talk to her about going to college in New York. While they were talking, Ray drives up and asks if Eden's alright. When he's sure, he begins to leave when another car, carrying the Creole woman from the beginning of the film, who is CeCe's grandmother. CeCe's grandmothers car falls halfway off the bridge. Ray gets out of the truck and helps Eric to save the woman. Ray saves her, but the woman begs Ray to get the suitcase. As Ray reaches in the car to get it, the car capsized into the water. The briefcase begins to move and finally opens releasing several gnarly looking snakes. As the car sinks into the bayou
Bayou
A bayou is an American term for a body of water typically found in flat, low-lying areas, and can refer either to an extremely slow-moving stream or river , or to a marshy lake or wetland. The name "bayou" can also refer to creeks that see level changes due to tides and hold brackish water which...

 the snakes attack Ray. The ambulance arrives to find Ray dead along with CeCe's grandmother. CeCe arrives shaken up over the tragedy and asks what happened to Ray's body, leaving Eden speechless.

The same night at the coroner's office, the coroner examines Ray's dead body apparently having been bitten by venomous snakes – presumed to be water snakes. The coroner leaves the area and comes back to see Ray's body missing and then he is killed by Ray's possessed body. Deputy Turner is also killed while returning Ray's tow truck to the show. The next day Eden is still recuperating from the night before. Rachel and her boyfriend, Sean, are at the lake, with Sean showing little emotion to Ray's death. He drank heavily leading to him ditching Rachel with Eden and having Eric chase after him. Meanwhile Tammy and Patty are planning to go to the mall to shoplift and they come across Ray's towing business. Patty goes to pee, while Tammy fixes the tires. When she's done, Tammy goes to look for Patty, only to find her impaled by battery clamps attached to chains leaving her to hang. Tammy tries to escape but Ray traps her in the garage and crushes her torso with a lowered car and then sucks her face off with a paint remover pump.

As Eric follows Sean to Ray's garage, Sean begins to show anger at Ray's death for his abandonment. Sean enters the area to find a picture of him when he was a little kid – showing that Ray did care about him. Sean stormed out toward the garage to find the remains of Tammy strewn around the floor. The night leads to Eden going to CeCe's grandmothers house, where she has a plethora of voodoo materials. CeCe then tells her that the snakes that killed Ray, were full of the evil that her grandmother took out of men to purify their souls. Ricky, Rachel, Sean, and Eric arrive at CeCe's and find out whats going. They try to escape town but their car is turned on its side preventing anyone from leaving the bayou. The kids all see Ray and begin to run and Ricky is caught by Ray when his leg is pinned to the stairs by a crowbar. His arm was then ripped off, causing him to bleed to death.

As the others panic inside, they look and it seems as if Ray is gone. Sean leaves the house to confront Ray, while Eden grabs a rife from the bedroom. Ray slashes Sean's face with his crowbar and impales him through the chest. Eden and Eric drag Sean inside and try in vain to stop the bleeding, but he died on the floor. Rachel cries over the loss of her boyfriend, while Eden talks CeCe into turning Sean's body into a human voodoo doll to control Ray. Meanwhile, Ray hooks the towing hook to the foundation of the house and pulls the front porch off, dragging Eden with it. Eden gets back to CeCe who finished the spell, but whose leg has been crushed by a support beam.

Ray begins to climb the wreckage toward CeCe, but CeCe stabs Sean's body several times to slow Ray down in his advance. Ray finally reaches her and slashes CeCe's throat, while Eden, Eric and Rachel escape. As the remaining three try to escape, Ray follows in his truck and pulls beside them. He tossed a chain around Rachel's neck and drags her half way out of the car, but Eden grabs hold of her legs. As both cars are accelerating Rachel screams and is impaled on a dead log. Eric and Eden then try to pass through the swamp to escape Ray, who dives beneath the murky water. As Eric and Eden headed for dry land, Ray attacks, missing them both, but separating them. Eden ends up in the graveyard, and Eric deeper in the swamp. Eden makes her way into a crypt where she finds an alter and an open casket where all the victims were kept. Eden tries to leave but Ray comes, locking her in. In panic, Eden hides beneath Tammy's body. Eric was then thrown into the crypt by Ray, who then goes to the alter. Eden starts to cry until Eric opens his eyes.

Eden can't hide her gasp, unknowingly drawing Ray's attention. As Ray looks in to inspect the bodies, he grabs Eden's foot, but Eric began to breath to protect Eden. Ray then stabs Eric in the head with a screwdriver. Eden then fights Ray by setting him on fire and pushing him down a chute, but he drags her with him. She then uses a charm she got from CeCe that protects against evil. Ray submits, but the snakes possessing his body emerge to try to take the charm from her. Eden escapes up a chute, using the charm as a diversion. Eden then traps Ray and the snakes in the chute. As she tries to drive off in his tow truck, she hears an inhuman shriek, signaling Ray is back. Ray chases Eden out of the truck before she can do anything and she runs to hide in the bayou. She hides behind a bush close to Ray. He hears a rustling and hacks the bush, revealing she's not there. Just then the tow truck emerges through the underbrush and crushes Ray in half against a tree, killing him. Eden then staggers off into the trees, and the two snakes can be seen crawling out of Ray's decomposing torso to find another host.

Cast

  • Agnes Bruckner
    Agnes Bruckner
    Agnes Bruckner is an American actress. She began acting on television in the late 1990s and has since appeared in seven films, including The Woods, Blue Car, and Murder By Numbers.-Early life:...

     as Eden Sinclair
  • Jonathan Jackson
    Jonathan Jackson (actor)
    Jonathan Stevens Jackson is an American actor, best known for playing Lucky Spencer, son of supercouple Luke and Laura on the American daytime drama General Hospital...

     as Eric
  • Laura Ramsey as Rachel
  • D.J. Cotrona
    D.J. Cotrona
    Donald Joseph "D.J." Cotrona is an American actor.-Early life:Cotrona was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father works for a recycling company and his mother is a teacher. He was studying to be a lawyer at Northeastern University in Boston; however, after doing a summer internship at a law...

     as Sean
  • Meagan Good
    Meagan Good
    Meagan Monique Good is an American film and television actress and occasional film producer. Beginning her career at the age of four, Good has appeared in numerous commercials, television shows, feature films, and music videos....

     as CeCe
  • Rick Cramer as Ray Sawyer
  • Pawel Szajda
    Pawel Szajda
    Pawel Szajda is a first-generation Polish-American screen and stage actor. He is most recognized for his roles in Under the Tuscan Sun, Generation Kill, and Tatarak.-Heritage:...

     as Ricky
  • Bijou Phillips
    Bijou Phillips
    Bijou Lilly Phillips is an American actress, model, and singer. Phillips began her career as a model but soon transitioned herself into acting and singing. When she was 13, she started as a model and became one of the youngest people to grace the cover of Interview Magazine and Italian Vogue....

     as Tammy
  • Davetta Sherwood
    Davetta Sherwood
    Davetta Sherwood is an American actress and musician. Sherwood first worked as a child model before venturing into an acting career including appearing in music videos and guest appearances...

     as Patty
  • Method Man
    Method Man
    Clifford Smith , better known by his stage name Method Man is an American hip hop artist, record producer, actor and member of the hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He took his stage name from the 1979 film The Fearless Young Boxer, also known as Method Man. He is one half of the rap duo Method Man...

     as Deputy Turner
  • Stacey Travis
    Stacey Travis
    Stacey Travis is an American actress whose films include Earth Girls Are Easy , Hardware , The Super , Traffic , and Ghost World . Travis starred on the comedy TV series Just Say Julie from 1989–1992 where she played a variety of characters...

     as Laura Sinclair

Production

The film marks the re-teaming of Kevin Williamson, writer of Scream
Scream (film)
Scream is a 1996 American slasher film written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven. The film stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Drew Barrymore, and David Arquette...

, and director Jim Gillespie
Jim Gillespie
John William Linden "Jim" Gillespie was a Major League Baseball outfielder. He played one game in right field for the Buffalo Bisons of the Players' League in . In that game, he had three at bats without a hit, and made three errors in four fielding chances.-Sources:...

 from I Know What You Did Last Summer
I Know What You Did Last Summer
I Know What You Did Last Summer is a 1997 American horror film. The film stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr. The screenplay was written by Kevin Williamson, writer of Scream, and very loosely based on Lois Duncan's popular novel of the same title...

. The film is based on the video game Backwater. It was shot in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

 in the cities of Amite, Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...

, Hammond
Hammond, Louisiana
Hammond is the largest city in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 20,049 at the 2009 census. It is home to Southeastern Louisiana University...

 and New Orleans.

Reception

Venom went into release in the fall of 2005, only a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

 devastated much Southeast Louisiana, making the film seem unfortunately topical. However, the scenery was much more typical of the Acadiana
Acadiana
Acadiana, or The Heart of Acadiana, is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that is home to a large Francophone population. Of the 64 parishes that make up Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment, make up the intrastate...

 region.

Venom opened on September 16, 2005 to a majority of negative reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, 8% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 60 reviews.
On Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, the film received an average score of 25 out of 100, based on 21 reviews.

Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....

 from the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

 wrote, “Even the undemanding high schoolers the film is aimed at will experience déjà voodoo, as Venom recites the A through Z of horror clichés. All hopes for suspense and plot twists are snuffed out about as quickly as the film’s black characters.”

Scott Weinberg of DVD Talk
DVD Talk
DVD Talk is a website for DVD enthusiasts founded in January 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman when DVDs and DVD players were first beginning to hit the market.The site started as an online forum, an email newsletter, and a page of DVD news and reviews...

said of the film, "Ultimately, Venom is too darn familiar to become anyone's dark-horse favorite, and the screenplay is more bland and familiar than it is outright terrible, but I'd say it's worthy of a rental if you love the horror stuff. You probably won't adore the thing, but you'll most likely admire its nasty tenacity."

J.C. Maçek III of WorldsGreatestCritic.com wrote, "Far be it from me to drool praise upon a movie for simply "not being as bad as it could have been". Especially because... well... Venom sucks. It's got more clichés than a Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...

 monologue and more moments of self-destructive illogic than a Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 campaign promise. If we take three steps back and throw a magnifying glass on this whole shebang, we see a little more clearly what this film really is: A victim of the Disney/Weinstein breakup... which made slightly less news than "Bennifer" did."

Many critics found Venom to be a stereotypical teen slasher movie. Spence D. from IGN Movies
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

 called it a “Cookie cutter horror straight from the Swamps of Louisiana
Bayou
A bayou is an American term for a body of water typically found in flat, low-lying areas, and can refer either to an extremely slow-moving stream or river , or to a marshy lake or wetland. The name "bayou" can also refer to creeks that see level changes due to tides and hold brackish water which...

.”
Peter Hartlaub from the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

 said this about Venom, “There’s nothing clever about this movie. It starts too slow, plot points are abandoned and even the killings start to run together.”

Venom did quite poorly at the box office compared to other movies, taking in $881,779 in gross revenue.

Tracklist

  1. The Click Five
    The Click Five
    The Click Five is an American power pop band from Boston, Massachusetts. The original members, most of them students at Berklee College of Music, started on January 1, 2003 and played in various local venues. They then quickly got the attention of talent scout Wayne Sharp...

     - "Just The Girl"
  2. No Address
    No Address
    No Address is an alternative rock/post-grunge band from Tallahassee, Florida. They are best known for their single "When I'm Gone "...

     - "When I'm Gone (Sadie)"
  3. Paul Trudeau - "Nothing Comes Easy"
  4. Tim Cullen - "Already There"
  5. Scheflo - "Don't You Want This"
  6. Doug Kershaw
    Doug Kershaw
    Doug Kershaw, born January 24, 1936, is an American fiddle player, singer and songwriter from Louisiana. Active since 1949, Kershaw has recorded fifteen albums and charted on the Hot Country Songs charts.- Early life :...

     - "Jole Blon"
  7. Courtney Jaye
    Courtney Jaye
    - Biography :Courtney Jaye was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and moved to Alpharetta, Georgia, when she was a freshman in high school. It was at this time she discovered The Grateful Dead and Neil Young, and also began to play the guitar. After becoming immersed in the bohemian culture, she...

     - "Permanent"
  8. Rob Zombie
    Rob Zombie
    Rob Zombie is an American musician, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie and has been nominated three times as a solo artist for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.Zombie has also established a career as a film director, creating the...

    - "Two Lane Blacktop"

Home media

Venom was released on January 17, 2006 on Region 1 DVD in USA. It was released a few months later in UK.

Extras included
  • "Voodoo Nightmare": The Making of Venom
  • Storyboard-To-Film Comparison
  • Cast Auditions
  • Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
  • Spanish subtitles
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