Reception
Venom went into release in the fall of 2005, only a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated much Southeast Louisiana, making the film seem unfortunately topical. However, the scenery was much more typical of the Acadiana region.
Venom opened on September 16, 2005 to a majority of negative reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, 8% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 60 reviews. On Metacritic, the film received an average score of 25 out of 100, based on 21 reviews.
Kyle Smith from the New York Post 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 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 monologue and more moments of self-destructive illogic than a Republican Party 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 called it a “Cookie cutter horror straight from the Swamps of Louisiana.” Peter Hartlaub from the San Francisco Chronicle 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.
Read more about this topic: Venom (2005 Film)
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