Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Rainey Dawn It's mainly/mostly a crime story where terrorists are trying to get money over holding a young rich boy hostage. The boy's mom went on a trip, left him with a maid and her dad at her place. The boy ordered a harmless snake but received the mamba by mistake - the mamba was suppose to have gone to the local toxicologist (the toxicologist received the boy's pet snake).Most of the film is about the crime being committed - arguing crooks! Only a little is shown of the snake - mainly the beginning of the film and the ending. This could have simply been a crime-thriller (that is mainly what it is anyway) and left out the horror aspect with the rarely shown snake.Okay film - just not great as a horror film. Good when viewed as a crime-thriller.5/10

videorama-759-859391 Here's a movie that's surprisingly good, if judged solely by it's Roadshow video cover, which really misrepresents the quality of it. It's a finely told horror/thriller, with a deadly nemesis, addition, and it isn't the three terrorists holding a boy and his uncle hostage. It's a black Mamba, known to be the deadliest snake in the world, so the real scene is set. The great Klaus Kinski, leads the trio, with lower IQ sidekick, Reed, who really manifests his character well. Completing the trio is the sexy, Susan George who's been a maid for this family. Most of the film is a Desperate Hours sort of flick, where police soon arrive and a negotiation is under the way. We go about the story realistically, not hurried. The young son goes to pick up his harmless pet snake, and you guessed it, he gets the wrong one. Venom is quite tense in parts, it's baddies, given real characters, Klaus, no dummy. His demise after he gets it by the snake, while shooting at the cops, is such a memorable and ugly image, when I think back to this 81 film. We are blessed with real good actors for this type of fare, and, I'm talking everyone, especially the uncle.

eatfirst I've just had the pleasure of re-acquainting myself with this forgotten gem of early '80s British horror which scared me half to death as a little kid."High concept" years before the term was invented, the plot ostensibly hangs on a series of belief-stretching co-incidences which result in a hostage siege taking place in a posh London home, with the police camped outside and a deadly (as we are repeatedly reminded) black mamba snake loose in the heating ducts.Made many years before CGI came along and gave us bloated nonsense like Anaconda and Snakes on a Plane the film-makers had to be fairly economical with their beastie's screen time. Going down the Jaws route , Venom makes highly effective use of POV camera shots, shadowy lighting and an unsettling score (an early work from the much missed composer Michael Kamen; and no, I have not forgotten that he was also responsible for that Bryan Adams monstrosity) to suggest the snakes' presence. When the creature is fully revealed it is more often than not the exceedingly dangerous real thing; borrowed from London Zoo, and provoked into getting the hump in the direction of the nearest camera by their, at the time, resident reptile expert Michael Ball (who gets both an un-credited cameo in the film, and himself played by a cranky Michael Gough in to the bargain).However, all of these slithery shenanigans are a mere aside to the real terror on show here. The casting of the infamously intense and insane Klaus Kinski opposite the famously drunk and antagonistic Oliver Reed. By all reports these two hated each other on sight and spent the whole shoot at war with each other, with Reed referring to Kinski as a Nazi at every possible opportunity. However, what must have a nightmare situation for director Piers Haggard (parachuted in after Tobe Hooper walked with shooting already under way) as they share virtually every scene together, paid off in dividends as the warring actors enthusiastically pour every ounce of their scenery-chewing one-oneupmanship onto the screen. Stir into this mix a few more well-renowned "difficult" actors: Nicol Williamson (The famously OTT Merlin from Excalibur) getting his Sweeney on, Sarah Miles, and Sterling Hayden among them; and what results is a glorious bombast of angry intense thesping, that grabs this would-b-movie by the balls and drags it into "forgotten classic" territory. A daft, wonderful, guilty pleasure. Seek it out.

ferbs54 A movie about a kidnapping? Cool. A movie about a kidnapping that degenerates into a hostage crisis? Even better! But howzabout a movie about the kidnapping of a seriously asthmatic kid, that turns into a hostage crisis, while the victims and criminals besieged by the law in a London town house are threatened by an escaped black mamba snake, the world's swiftest and most deadly? What could be better than that? Well, as the 1982 British thriller "Venom" demonstrates, perhaps an all-star group of performers to put this fun-sounding conceit over! Thus, we have an absolutely sterling cast here, consisting, in part, of, uh, Sterling Hayden as the asthmatic boy's supercool grandfather, Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed as the kidnappers (a terrific pair of bad guys, with Oliver's ultimate fate in the film giving new meaning to the old expression "trouser snake"), Sarah Miles as a toxicologist, Nicol Williamson as the police commander in charge of the crisis, and Michael Gough (wasted in a teensy role) as a snake expert. The picture has been directed for maximum suspense by Piers Haggard, with much of that suspense naturally arising from the fact that the viewer can never predict where or when that deadly mamba will raise its ugly head. Any opened drawer, cabinet or door in the picture can serve as a most lethal jack-in-the-box of sorts, and this knowledge keeps us primed and nervous throughout. With the exception of that final ambiguous shot of a snake in the town house's ductwork (I still can't figure out the meaning of that!), I found this film to be thoroughly satisfying and entertaining. And the further good news is that the picture has been given a great-looking treatment by the always dependable folks at Blue Underground. Thanks again, guys!