Venom

When I first saw Venom, I had no idea that someday I'd be mocking it, and movies like it. But now that I'm doing this blog, I figured it was time to revisit the movie in all of its underwhelming mediocrity. Remember, I'm watching while writing, so SPOILERS will be plentiful...

Not a good sign...the DVD has 6 minutes' worth of ads to sit through. Yeesh. Remember when the trailers were optional? No? Well I do.

So anyway, this thing takes place in Louisiana. The opening scene shows an elderly black woman digging around in a graveyard. She unearths a tiny box, presumably holding the remains of Billy Barty.(See, he was a comedian who happened to be a little person, so the small box would....ahhh, never mind.) The box has a lock that is shaped like the head of a snake, and the woman has a vision about a murder when she touches it.

The woman lights a candle, then puts a red hankie over her head. While uttering some kind of chant, she also puts the snake-lock/pendant around her neck. Well, I'm glad THAT made perfect sense, because the scene comes to an abrupt halt at that point.

The next scene shows a diner right out of "Happy Days". 2 teen guys, Eric and Shawn, are sitting at a table drinking sodas, and one can't stop staring at a somewhat pretty waitress named Eden. As the starer asks what's wrong with their small town, some kid named Ricky joins them. As of yet, none of the dweebs have any memorable traits or personality. Great.

Shawn tries to convince Eric to give up on a reconciliation with his soulmate Eden, who has apparently given them both the stink eye. Or maybe that's just her usual face. Yikes. This movie already scares me, and nothing has happened yet.

A tow truck pulls in, driven by a greaseball named Ray. He and Shawn exchange a glance, then Ray picks up his order to go, and leaves. We return to crazy voodoo lady(I feel like I'm playing a Monkey Island video game!), who is dragging her luggage through the rain, presumably to a Motel 6. Nope, she dragged it to her car and put it in the back seat. My mistake.

Everything switches back to the diner, where a blond guy is checking out the rack of a girl named Tammy. Tammy sees Ray sitting stiff as a statue in his truck, and decides that it would be fun to show off her goods to the unstable-looking trucker. Ray doesn't look too Happy about being teased by jailbait.

After the diner closes for the night, Eden bids farewell to Rachel, another waitress, then rides a bicycle home. Crazy voodoo lady is also driving home, but apparently her home is in London, because where she is, there's a wall of fog. On one of her car seats is the suitcase full o' snakes. Back in the bayou country, Eden bikes past Ray's garage, and he just gives her his thousand-yard stare again.

Full moon in the sky, more biking, yadda yadda yadda. A car comes up behind Eden, but it's only Eric, giving her more of his sad-puppy face as he passes her. He stops his vehicle ahead of her to try to have a chat, but she keeps going for a few more feet before stopping. Great! Maybe now we can find out what interesting, spellbinding incident led to their break-up.

Eh. They're going to different colleges in the fall, and Eric can't get a grip. Been there, dude. Let her go. There are other fish in the sea, and most of them don't have wide, staring fish-eyes like this one.

As they continue to argue, Ray pulls up in his massive truck. He asks Eden if she's okay, then tells Eric that he shouldn't'[t park his car on the bridge, before he takes off in his Truckosaurus Wrecks. Not even 15 seconds later, Ray nearly collides with the voodoo lady's vehicle, which is left dangling precariously off the bridge halfway.

As the car teeters and totters, Eric sees that the voodoo lady, who is related to one of their friends named "CeCe", is still alive. Ray pushes Eric away from the car, and tells him to get ready to catch the old lady when Ray snatches her out of her seat.

Ray crawls slowly into the passenger side of the car, and Voodoo Granny wakes up. She begs Ray to get the snake-filled suitcase, but he rescues her first. As Eric and Eden try to calm the crazy woman down, Ray goes back in for the suitcase. Unfortunately, his attempt to grab it results in the baggage falling open, and Ray is attacked by a multitude of snakes. Oh, and the car falls into the water below the bridge. As the car starts to sink, the snakes REALLY go after Ray, and he starts to scream.

The state troopers show up, but they say that the car can't be hauled up until the water level lowers again. They recovered Ray's body, but he's a mess. Oh, and they have the suitcase, too, but of course, it's empty. Of the 2 troopers, only the older one knows that drawings inside the suitcase are part of some type of Creole magic.

Eric feels responsible for what happened, and Eden tries to make him feel better. Then the DVD died. The sound began stuttering first, then the image began to skip frames. I've spent most of the past week trying to watch the movie since, with no luck. So...THE END, at least for now.

What did I learn from Venom? HA! That's a good one...

-Netflix has some really shitty DVD's in their collection.
-It's not fun, wasting a week trying to get a movie to play.
-I need a better genre.

This week, I have a choice between a Val Kilmer movie called The Traveler, or a late-'80's slasher called Slaughterhouse. I hop;e one of them breaks me out of this rut!