manchester_england2004 Most British horror films are good and I've enjoyed watching them ever since I was a kid. I've spent my adult years tracking down the ones I never got to see, for whatever reason, when I was growing up. Today I finally got to see VENOM, which I'd never heard of to be honest. It could have been one of those "hidden gems" we all come across from time to time. But sadly it isn't.The plot revolves around a mad scientist trying to create a poisonous nerve gas from spider venom. The idea is interesting and one could imagine Hammer, Amicus or Tigon making an interesting film out of the premise. But sadly, VENOM is as dull as dishwater. It's also very incoherent and it seems that every five minutes or so, the main character is chasing this girl through the woods. The problem is that there really isn't much mystery other than the motive of the mad scientist. The characters aren't interesting and nor do they do anything that holds your attention through the film. If you stick with it, you're merely doing so just so you can "cross one off" your list of British horror films to see.Director Peter Sykes has made only two other horror films besides this one - DEMONS OF THE MIND and TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER. What makes his style different from most other directors of British horror films is that he goes out of his way to try shocking the viewer. In TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER the shocks are quite effective in my opinion. But VENOM just fails to escape its flat feeling so much that one could be forgiven for falling asleep before the shocking moments arrive. I won't explain what happens but it's tame and not as compelling viewing as it should be.The whole production has the feeling of everyone simply going through the motions. The acting isn't awful by any means. But the whole production just feels flat and lifeless most of the time. Derek Newark, usually cast as a police inspector or detective in films and TV shows from the 1960s and 1970s, is wasted here. Gertan Klauber is better in his brief appearances in the CARRY ON films, as well as his small role in SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN. The remaining cast members are nearly all unknown to me and Simon Brent is particularly bland as the lead.Overall, VENOM is a very boring film. It remained obscure in the UK for a long time for good reason. Recommended only for British horror completists.

Wuchak Released in 1971 (but not until '75 in the USA), "Spider's Venom" (aka "The Legend of Spider Forest" and "Venom") is a mystery/horror about an artist (Simon Brent) who stumbles upon a village with secrets in the Black Forest, Germany: A beautiful redhead (Neda Arneric) frolics the local woods and seemingly leads men to their deaths, but people in the hamlet only willingly speak of it in hushed tones late at night when the fires burn low. The tangled web includes lethal spiders, neurotoxin and mad Nazi doctors. Sheila Allen is also on hand.The protagonist looks like an early 70's rock star (e.g. Jim Morrison) and I noticed an early 70's rock/prog rock soundtrack during the tavern sequence (think Jethro Tull or ELO). Arneric is a serious cutie and there's some tame, tasteful nudity. I favor the haunting backwoods European mood. It was directed by Peter Sykes, whose next film would be Hammer's "Demons of the Mind (1972); he also directed Hammer's penultimate "To the Devil a Daughter" (1976) and, believe it or not, "The Jesus Film" (1979).Unfortunately, the editing is amateurish, like a lot of 70's low-budget Euro flicks; it's just awkwardly done and takes you right out of the movie. Pictures like this make you praise Hammer Films in all their low-budget glory. Also, the DVD that I viewed (which is probably the only form of the movie available) had terrible audio and I could only make out about 50% of the dubbed verbiage; no kidding.The film runs 97 minutes and was shot at Twickenham Film Studios, St Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, England with establishing shots of the Alps. WRITERS: Derek Ford & Donald Ford, with additional dialogue by Christopher Wicking. GRADE: C

MARIO GAUCI To begin with, I first became aware of this film through the biographical notes on director Sykes residing among the supplements included on the Anchor Bay Special Edition DVD of Hammer's superior latter-day outing DEMONS OF THE MIND (1972).Despite its obvious low-budget, this obscure but stylish thriller with fantasy and erotic overtones is an impressive and assured piece of work in its own right – starting out as it does in black-and-white with the first attack of the "Spider Girl" (played by a Serbian actress with the awkward-sounding name of Neda Americ but whose looks are decidedly stunning) after some full-frontal nudity by way of watery lovemaking! The male protagonist (Simon Brent), then, is a sturdy and compelling character; also notable in the cast are the vicious mature-looking woman (Sheila Allen) who forcefully seduces the hero in a steamy but short-lived sequence, her wily first citizen father (Gerard Heinz), and her ill-tempered blond boyfriend (Derek Newar) – who's incongruously whipped at one point by his own cohorts! Various unexpected twists come to light during the lively climax which sees the emergence of a cross-dressing ex-Nazi – who turns out to be the father of the Spider Girl and is intent on resurrecting the Party in his remote countryside village through the sale of art treasures retrieved in World War II and which lay hidden in a local church ever since! This is a very rare item indeed: I acquired it in a full-frame edition (with forced Finnish subtitles to boot), which format renders the compositions overly claustrophobic at times!

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Almost incomprehensible horror movie that goes into so much detail about this crazy mad scientist and his equally nutty daughter that you get lost in just what it's supposed to be about in the first place. We see at the start of the movie in a dream-like sequence Paul and Anna skinny dipping in a lake and then romping and making out in the grass, stark naked, as their suddenly attacked by this unseen shadowy figure. The camera then pans to Anna's chest and we see this black spider tattoo.You assume that Paul was killed before the credits are even over but then we see him driving in the German countryside and running into Anna who he photographs. Anna very upset at her picture being taken runs off in the wood and Paul, in a state of confusion, drives into the first town that he come too. It's here that Paul finds out that the town's most respected and richest man Huber is interested in his pictures and uses his creepy daughter Hellen to bed Paul down in his hotel room in order to steal them.The movie never explains what the connection between Paul and Anna is and why are both Huber and Ellen so interested in Paul? Were also never told what did the opening sequence have to do with the rest of the movie anyway? We get some idea of what's going on when we start to see Huber involved with spiders and spider venom in his lab and that he uses the expensive paintings, that he stole after the war, from the local church to secretly sell to unscrupulous art dealer in order to finance his experiments. Were never really told what he's attempting to do with the venom and why. it seems that he's trying to create a super powerful poison & nerve gas agent to either revive his beloved Third Reich but we never really know for sure if Huber is a fugitive fanatical Nazi or not or if he just wants to sell his super poison WMD, Weapon of Mass Destruction, to the highest bidder just to enrich himself.The movie "Venom" goes on with Paul finding that Huber's saw mill that employs almost everyone in town is being used to saw people, who are killed by the "Spider-Girl" Anna, to pieces and then have their bodies, or whatever's left of them, disposed of.There's a number of locals working for both Huber & Ellen led by this not so bright thug Johann who always slips up and is such a burden on Haber's & Ellen's work with the spiders that he's viciously whipped on Hellen's orders. later Johann get's his revenge on Ellen by beating her head in and leaving her for dead as hundreds of deadly spiders break loose from their cages in Haber's lab."Venom" totally disintegrates, literally, at the end with almost everyone going up flames including what seem to be Anna's mother or guardian Frau Kessler. With the now totally insane Huber, doing an imitation of Anthony Perkins at the end "Psycho", looking like his face was badly stung by his spiders who were just as outraged at his experiments with them as the audience was in being conned, through false advertisements on the DVD box, into watching the movie. You watch "Venom" expecting something to happen and all you get is a number of unrelated scenes and people, what exactly did that bunch of thugs working for Huber have to do with the movie anyway? You also never get any intelligent answer to just what Anna had to do with Huber's experiments only getting some kind of lame explanation that she's being used by him like some kind of a scarecrow to scare people away from town in order to keep them from finding out about his secret experiments. Anna if anything else attracted Paul to the town and his being there spelled the end for Huber his daughter Hellen Frau Kessler and the rest of the gang of vicious and drunken hoodlums, including Johann, who worked for them.