 Hello and welcome to another episode of Frightfully Forgotten Horror Movies, but before we get started, what are we drinking? Today we are drinking Lord Summer Isle's Smoked Logger. Ha ha ha! Today we're gonna bring to you 1981's Venom. This is directed by Pierce Haggard, and actually this is one of the few movies he's done. He's actually mostly done television series, based on the novel by Alan Shofield. Klaus Kinski is in this. The Wild Man himself. He was in Crawl Space just to mention one of the many movies he was in. You can click our link above. And the famous Hellraiser himself. Oliver Reed is in this. I was known as the Wild One. He was in Burnt Offerings just to mention one of many movies that he was in. And Nicole Williamson is also in this. He was in Excalibur. He played Merlin. Merlin, yeah. Your lust will hold you up. He was also in The Return to Oz. As the Gnome King. Wearing those slippers while he's all stone. His wang is all stone. Venom starts off with the chauffeur Dave, driving home a mom and a child, Ruth and Philip Hawkins. You find out that the kid's a bit of an animal freak. He loves animals. He has his little zoo that he calls it at home. He also has asthma, and the mom is very overprotective of him. The mom is going to be flying out soon to go visit his dad who's working abroad. You meet the grandpa who's like this ex safari legend. Which is why the grandson so into animals. The chauffeur and the maid go upstairs. And you kind of figure out they got a little something going on the side. She starts undressing and takes down everything. The chauffeur Dave goes to drive the mother to the airport. And while he's there, he picks up somebody else. This weird man played by Klaus Kinski. You have something for me? He takes him to this kind of abandoned safe house. The maid is there and then maid and Klaus Kinski start kind of getting together. She's playing both sides. The grandpa really wants to get Philip this snake. He really wants him to go by himself. Yeah. He's got to go by himself for some reason. Fools the maid and tricks the kid to get in this cab and takes him to the pet store. In the meantime, Klaus Kinski calls the grandpa and convinces him that he is like working on this safari documentary and he wants to meet the grandpa at a hotel to talk about getting him involved and begrudgingly agrees. So while the grandpa's gone, the chauffeur Dave and Klaus Kinski's character all show up at the house. They're going to kidnap the kid and ransom the boy for money. The only problem is that the damn kid went out. He wasn't supposed to. On top of that, the grandpa comes home early because while Klaus Kinski didn't show up, the kid comes back too with a box. There's a little bit of commotion going on because the plan is a little awry already. The box ends up getting opened up and this snake comes out and just whacked. Just bites the maid on the face, on the chest and the arm all over the place and then just sort of slithers away and takes off. The grandpa right away kind of knows from all his safari days, he's like... This is a venomous snake. This is a very deadly snake. Klaus Kinski's like, should be alright! She'll be alright! Is this a cardam snake? Yes, it's fine. That wasn't supposed to happen. They've got to continue forward with the plan here. This kid ended up getting the wrong snake. The person who received the black mamba just got a common African house snake. She phones the cops. Whoever got the black mamba, well, they're in trouble. A cop goes over to the house and as the door opens, the footage is all super sped up. Oliver retakes this double barrel shotgun out and just blows the cop away right off the fucking steps of the house. Why'd you shoot that policeman? You're not supposed to think anything! He's still alive briefly so he kind of slinks to the car and calls for backup. William Bullock arrives. Takes control of the whole situation. These guys are stuck inside the house. There's a black mamba loose in the house. Everybody's trying to strike a deal. Placement! I want the car! I want money! I have to buy! So if you want to see what happens, keep watching Venom. One of the best things about this is Kinski and Reid. In the same movie. That's crazy. These two whacked fucking guys. Imagine being a fly on the wall in that set. How did these guys get along? Did they get along? They either got along great or not at all. Yeah. I would have loved to have been there. And have a couple of drinks with Oliver Reid. Or fifty. Another really cool thing about this movie which we just found out was Toby Hooper actually started directing it. And there was too many creative differences and he buggered off. So then Piers Haggard had to take over. And also Klaus Kinski chose to do this movie over Raiders of the Lost Ark. Over money, right? Because this movie paid more. Which you thought was weird. Like this kind of low budget movie paid more than the fucking Spielberg movie? Yeah, like fucking Spielberg must have been a tight ass. The characters that they play are actually very good and very dynamic in this movie. Very dynamic. You kind of wouldn't think so with a movie like this. But they're very deep. You take Oliver Reid's character for instance. He's a simple chauffeur. But that is what makes him unhappy in this whole movie. He does not like taking orders because he's kind of a layman, right? He's a workhorse. And that's what Kinski treats him like. You go do this, you go do that. You don't talk. You know, you do what I say. You do what I say and he gets all pissed off. Yeah, like you don't order me around. The man wants a drink. Let him get a fucking drink. Dave the chauffeur starts off like very just mundane. But then like he gets himself in this situation where he goes off the rail. He's screaming and yelling and I don't know what the fuck you do. Screaming at the old man, beating up that old man, punching him in the gut and everything. Well, then he fucking loses it and he blows that cop away when he wasn't supposed to. And he's like, he's not cut out for any of this, right? He should have just stayed to being a chauffeur. Let the criminals handle the criminal work. Exactly. Even Kinski's character, he's like supposed to be this mastermind and he fucking loses the whole situation. Kind of a comedy of errors in some ways, you know? Everything goes wrong. Not one thing goes right. Kinski hopes to keep the old man at the hotel bar waiting so they can conduct this heist. But the old man is fucking, I'll leave, you know? Like everything goes wrong, shoots the cop. And not to mention there's a fucking deadly snake. One of the most deadliest snakes in the world, loose in the house, picking them off, right? That wasn't part of the fucking plan. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong. And the relationship between the characters is interesting. It's kind of like a fish called Wanda a bit, where like they're all together on this heist, but they all are kind of against each other and have their own plan. No one's really working cohesively, which is why things kind of fall apart. Exactly. That's also what leads to the pacing of this movie, right? Paced perfectly. Comes down a little bit. You get a little bit of feedback from the characters. Then all of a sudden, the snake appears. It's like, whoa, okay, fuck. The snake's on a rampage. They gotta find it. That old man with the lamp. Send the old man into the snake with that lamp. He's all dead weight, so who cares? That also adds to the tension. This movie would not be as tense as it is without that snake. Everybody's trapped inside. They can't go out because the cops are now there. They have to stay in, except there's a snake stalking them. The flow of the movie is interesting as it starts off very mundane and almost happy, the kids all happy. As soon as that snake comes out and bites the maid, it's like shit hits the fan. And the movie Flip Flops is interesting. It Flip Flops between being like a horror movie with the venomous snake and being like a crime thriller, hostage situation. It's a neat movie in that respect. Like if you watch the trailer, it looks like a pure horror movie. But when you watch the movie, it's like, oh no, it's actually not really horror. It's kind of a crime thriller with a bit of horror thrown in with the snake. Interesting to think of what Toby Hooper might have did with that aspect of the movie, right? He might have went full horror and maybe gotten rid of the whole cop thing altogether. The effects are really good in this actually. And sometimes snakes can look really bad. And this snake looks pretty good. I like the fact that it is not some big cobra. It's not a big anaconda, huge thing. Yeah. It's a mundane looking kind of small snake, but the fact that it's so venomous is what makes it so deadly. It could be a garden snake, but no, that thing bites you and you're dead in minutes. The fact that it's so small and skinny, it can go anywhere in the house. And you're not going to see it. That's what I like about it because you open the door to something and whoa, it's right there. It gets in the liquor cabinet, pour Oliver Reed, goes and get himself a drink. Like, oh man, like the worst place for the snake to be in the liquor cabinet. Yeah, yeah, come on. Which leads to the humor. There's actually some good humor in this movie. Dark humor, subtle humor, going to the liquor cabinet. Yeah. The snake is there and beating up the old man. Well, and then a lot of the humor too comes from the dynamic between the characters. I don't know what the fuck you do. Klauskinski yelling at people. And not to give away the ending or anything, but there's a scene at the end of Klauskinski's fighting with that snake. And it's all slow motion. And it's some rubber snake. And yeah, super long, super over the top. Dude, like the music. Yeah. He's all snacking that snake against the walls and everything. Super rubber snake. That's fucking great. If you're going to get anyone to fight a rubber snake in a movie. Klauskinski. Yeah. A movie that really is a good mash between whore and crime thriller. As soon as that snake comes out, it's nonstop madness. You can't take your eyes off it. No, no, it sucks you in. The characters suck you in too. You always want to see what's going to happen next. What the cops have to go through to get into the house is very interesting. Movie does a great job of letting your guard down. And forgetting about that snake. And then all of a sudden the snake pops up out of nowhere and you're like, oh fuck yeah, the fucking snake. I forgot about that. That's great. So if you just want to sit back and enjoy yourself and don't have to think too much, see Klauskinski and Oliver Reed go off the rails for an hour and a half or watch Venom. Exactly. And until next time, keep drinking. The finest people that I've ever met in my life are in pumps. Make sure that you don't drink as much as Oliver Reed did when he died, because then you might die too.