Venom is set in a small town in the swamps of Louisiana. As the film opens, Miss Emmie (Deborah Duke) unearths a suitcase and puts it in the back of her car. Tow-truck driver Ray Sawyer (Rick Cramer, who looks just like William Sadler) swerves to avoid Eden (Agnes Bruckner) and Eric (Jonathan Jackson), who are arguing on a bridge, and hits Miss Emmie's car. Ray rescues her and, at her behest, goes back for the suitcase, which pops open, revealing that it's full of snakes. The snakes attack Ray and the car falls into the water. Ray's body is later recovered and taken to the morgue, where he rises and begins a killing spree. Eden and Eric, along with their friends Rachel (Laura Ramsey), Sean (D.J. Cotrona), Cece (Meagan Good), Tammy (Bijou Phillips), and Ricky (Pawel Szadja), are going about their daily routines when they learn that Ray's body is missing. Soon, they find that Ray is pursuing them. After fleeing to Miss Emmie's house, they learn the truth about the old woman, her grand-daughter Cece, and what must be done to stop Ray.

The story of Venom was inspired by a video game which was in development at the time but never saw the light of day. I wouldn't be surprised if that description didn't exactly inspire confidence in you, but the basic premise is actually pretty interesting. Venom combines the slasher movie with the zombie movie with the kind of voodoo movie which one would have found in the mid part of the 20th century. This combination creates a unique hybrid which covers many aspects of the horror genre.

The problem is that it doesn't combine them very well. In short, Venom never gels. If it had truly stuck with the voodoo aspects, it could have been a much more interesting movie. Instead, the second half of the film becomes a Friday the 13th clone, as the now unstoppable Ray chases the teens through the swamp, killing them in various ways. Despite the fact that he's a voodoo zombie, the movie feels like any other slasher movie. If you only saw the last 40 minutes of the movie, you would easily assume that this was just another Jason clone.

The film doesn't get any help from the stereotypical characters. Everyone here represents some sort of standard horror movie character, with my favorite being Eden, the nice girl who wants to escape town to go to medical school. These people follow the basic horror path and there's no surprises here. Williamson wasn't responsible for the script, but as someone who has written movies with great twists, one would expect some sort of surprises in the story. Unfortunately, the only surprise is how silly the main plot point is. The idea of a immortal voodoo zombie stalking people in a swamp is a good one, but I can't get past the fact that the whole thing comes about due to a suitcase full of voodoo snakes. Who greenlit this?

Venom would make a great double feature with Snakes on a Plane on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Echo Bridge Entertainment through an agreement with Miramax. The film has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps. However, the original aspect ratio of the movie was 2.35:1, so this is obviously mis-framed. The transfer seems to have focused on the middle part of the frame, giving a zoomed-in effect. This results in a somewhat grainy image which really accentuates the blemishes on the actor's faces. The colors look fairly good, and despite the fact that Venom is a dark movie, the action is always visible. If they hadn't changed the aspect ratio, this could have been a good transfer. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 4.2 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are notably good, especially when the action moves to the swamp, where we can hear various sounds. The surround sound effects aren't great, but they are present and add something to the action scenes. The subwoofer effects come into play when Ray attacks.

The Venom Blu-ray Disc contains three extras. "Voodoo Nightmare: The Making of Venom" (9 minutes) (which, ironically, shows us the original 2.35:1 framing) contains comments from Kevin Williamson, who describes how the project came together, as well as the cast, who talk about their characters. "Storyboard to Film Comparison" (7 minutes) shows us side-by-side how the drawings compared to the finished film for four scenes. "Cast Auditions" (7 minutes) allows us to see six of the primary cast members trying out for their roles.