Dave The Chauffeur (Oliver
Reed) has a cunning plan. In cahoots with his sexy nanny mistress,
Louise (Susan George), he’s plotting to
kidnap the son of the wealthy hotel owner they both work for. Also in
on the plan is Jacques Muller, Louise’s barmy German boyfriend,
played by barmy German, Klaus Kinski.
Unfortunately, things don’t go according to plan. Firstly, the
son suffers from potentially fatal asthma. Secondly, they’re trapped
in the house by an army of cops after an anxious Dave blasts an inquisitive
bobby with his shotgun. Thirdly, thanks to an alarmingly incompetent
pet shop, there’s a lethal and pissed-off black mamba snake roaming
the house looking for something to sink its teeth into. The one stroke
of luck for the hapless criminal trio is that the grandfather of the
family, Howard Anderson, is a legendary safari man with lots of experience
with the more savage end of the animal kingdom.
Stepping into the bristly beard of Anderson is Sterling Hayden. The giant
of an actor is best known for his work with Stanley Kubrick in classics
such as The Killing and Dr. Strangelove, as well as such legendary roles
as Dix Handley in The Asphalt Jungle (see: John
Huston), but in the twilight
of his career he found himself an unlikely 66-year-old action hero, hunting
this poisonous serpent through the house like some weird reptilian take
on Die Hard – though the result is sadly more Bruce Forsyth than
Bruce Willis.
The snake (played by a genuine and very dangerous black mamba on loan
from London Zoo) is clearly a creature of firm moral fibre though, as
it avoids the hostages entirely and instead sinks its teeth into the
bad guys one by one.
Susan George is the first to go, bumped off before the kidnapping plot
can even get underway. Chomped in the face several times by the psychotic
serpent, she dies an agonising and drool-covered death, thrashing about
on the floor. Poor old Oliver Reed is the next to perish. Shot in the
chest by police officers who have entered the house via the cellar, he’s
still trying to drag himself up the stairs when the mamba casually slides
up his trouser leg and snacks on his bollocks. But the most memorable
demise is saved for the cold, clinical criminal mastermind played by
Kinski.
As the hostage
drama comes to a climax, the snake launches itself out of the curtains
and turns the screeching German into a veritable
pin cushion. Lumbering onto the balcony, wrestling with the creature,
Muller perishes in a hail of bullets from the police marksmen but not
before he shoots the snake in the head by way of revenge. The pair
then tumble to the street below, trussed up in the net curtains.
The clearly frail Hayden summons up much of his legendary screen presence
for this barmy horror thriller but, surrounded by such a buffet of
hammy talent, all he can do is look vaguely disgruntled at the whole
affair.
His character, looking for all the world like the bastard offspring
of Santa Claus and Kris Kristofferson, is made even more unusual by
his
inexplicable pirate-style dialogue, peppering even the simplest speech
with interjections of “Yarrrr” and “Me laddie!”
Despite the clearly insane concept, or more likely because of it, the
movie is actually an entertaining little oddity helped along by the
powerhouse teaming of Kinski and Reed, and it makes for an endearingly
daft way
to spend 90 minutes.
Need to know: Venom was originally to have been directed by Tobe Hooper,
of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame, but he left the production days into
shooting and was replaced by veteran British helmer, Piers Haggard.
Other faces to look for include stalwart Brit horror icon Michael Gough,
best
known these days for playing Alfred in the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher
Batman movies, as a snake expert and Alan Ford, the foul-mouthed East
End villain Brick Top from Guy Richie’s Snatch, as a surprisingly
meek and polite policeman.
Honourable mention: Two years prior to playing chase the snake, Hayden
also appeared as Jeremiah in the ambitious (and swiftly cancelled)
TV sci-fi series, The Starlost, in which the remnants of humanity are
adrift
in space, unaware that they’re living in a vast spacecraft. Sterling
Hayden died from cancer in 1986, with Venom marking his last theatrical
appearance.
Availability: Venom received a DVD release in the UK in 2004.
