New U.S. Release

Venom

By JUSTIN CHANG

Meagan Good, Laura Ramsey, Jonathan Jackson and Agnes Bruckner are terrorized in 'Venom'

A Dimension Films release of an Outerbanks Entertainment and Collision Entertainment production. Produced by Kevin Williamson, Scott Faye, Karen Lauder. Executive producers, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Andrew Rona. Co-executive producers, Flint Dille, John Zuur Platten. Co-producers, Jennifer Breslow, Ron Schmidt. Directed by Jim Gillespie. Screenplay, Flint Dille, John Zuur Platten, Brandon Boyce, based on a story by Dille, Platten.
 
With: Agnes Bruckner, Jonathan Jackson, Laura Ramsey, D.J. Cotrona, Rick Cramer, Meagan Good, Bijou Phillips, Pawel Szadja, Davetta Sherwood, Stacey Travis, Marcus Brown, James Pickens Jr., Method Man, Deborah Duke
 

Now may not be the best time to release a popcorn pic about people dying in Louisiana, but as mindless scare machines go, Dimension Films' bayou-set slasher thriller acquits itself well enough. Gratuitously gory and derivative to the core, "Venom" manages to deliver some effective frights in between large swaths of voodoo gibberish, but the atrociously ill timing all but guarantees a poisonous reception.

In a Louisiana marsh, gas station owner Ray (Rick Cramer) attempts to save an old Creole woman from a car crash, unaware that she's traveling with a suitcase full of venomous serpents containing all the demons she has exorcised from murderers in the past. After dying a ridiculously protracted death by drowning and snakebite, Ray is resurrected as a killer who, like Jason and Freddy before him, exists mainly to impale any teenagers stupid enough to cross his path.

He has plenty to choose from, including a blonde who tries to rob his gas station (Bijou Phillips, putting her high-pitched squeak to good use), his own illegit son Sean (D.J. Cotrona) and various black and gay characters who are dispatched almost as quickly as they are introduced. On the smarter end are Eden (the uncannily self-possessed Agnes Bruckner) and Cece (Meagan Good), who alone knows how to fight the killer supernaturally.

Hoary as the mystical elements are, scribes Flint Dille, John Zuur Platten and Brandon Boyce show a crazy conviction -- one might even call it integrity -- in their plundering of the supernatural, culminating in an elaborate voodoo ritual involving blood, candles and a fresh corpse that is educational, to say the least.

Execution also benefits from the imprimatur of savvy "Scream" maven Kevin Williamson (here in a producing role) and relatively restrained direction by Jim Gillespie (who helmed the Williamson-scripted "I Know What You Did Last Summer"). Rather than bury the story in shock cuts, Gillespie and editor Paul Martin Smith ratchet up the tension slowly by letting scenes simply play themselves out.

Ably capturing the region's muddy earth tones and warm, candle-lit interiors, cinematographer Steve Mason also shows a knack for deploying offscreen space to spring some impressively nasty shocks. Gore level is very high and very red.

Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen), Steve Mason; editor, Paul Martin Smith; music, James L. Venable; production designer, Monroe Kelly; art director, Randy Moore; set decorator, Kristen Bicksler; costume designer, Jennifer Parsons; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Stacy F. Brownrigg; sound designer, John Pospisil; supervising sound editors, Geoffrey G. Rubat, Jason George; visual effects supervisors, Greg Strause, Colin Strause; associate producers, Sarah Kucserka, Joshua Levinson; assistant director, Nilo Otero; casting, Amanda Harding, Amanda Koblin. Reviewed at Aidikoff screening room, Beverly Hills, Sept. 14, 2005. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 86 MIN.