Dread. That’s what you’ll feel in the first two episodes of Netflix’s new series, Archive 81. And it only gets worse (or better?). It’s about a man repairing destroyed videotapes. So immediately you’ll think it could be like the supernatural horror of The Ring. It’s about a small community of isolated people. So is it like Wicker Man or The Stepford Wives? It has a freakish cult, so is it another take on Rosemary’s Baby or Devil’s Advocate or Midsommar? You Should Have Left, Vacancy, 1408, and other recent creepily surreal voyages will come to mind, but it’s certainly suspense and definitely a thriller. But how much horror lies ahead and how chilling will it get? Is it a throwback to 1970s mainstream horror or trash B-movie slasher horror, or based on real-life horror, like The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel? Is it more possession or body swapping like Fallen or Skeleton Key or Intruders or Get Out? Science fiction like The Man in the High Castle? Surreal supernatural fantasy like Doctor Strange? Weird rituals like Eyes Wide Shut or The Watcher in the Woods? Or is it The Lost Room or John Carpenter’s The Prince of Darkness?
For a movie that had some pretty rough previews, including Tom Hardy as a journalist with some indecipherable dialogue and a scientist who mispronounced a key word in the story, the end result may come as a surprise: Venom is actually a pretty good movie. Do we credit a great post-production and re-shoots, including a complete redo of the strange “symbiote” explanatory scene, or does Sony need to simply work on improving its movie trailers? Frankly all that matters is what made it to the screen. Fans of the comic book anti-hero and villain, of alien invasion movies, of that unique character design from co-creator artist Todd McFarlane, of Tom Hardy, and non-traditional superhero movies, you’ll have to work to find anything wrong with this movie. It’s a good Halloween month monster movie and you don’t need to know anything about the character or Marvel Comics to jump right in. But you just might want to check out the comics after you see it. Like Frank Miller caused Daredevil to become popular, McFarlane made Venom big in the 1980s. Unlike McFarlane’s movie Spawn, an R-rated film that was too dark for mainstream audiences, the PG-13 rating for Venom makes this movie accessible to everyone.
A mix of the classic alien invasion flick, the horrifying McFarlane character look, with the grimy city vibe like the Detroit of Robocop, Venom has elements that make it feel like it belongs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, regardless of its origin as a Sony film. As for quality and delivery, it falls somewhere above Blade, Iron Man 2 and 3,The Fantastic Four, the Hulk movies, and Spawn, X-Men 3 and X-Men: Apocalypse, and somewhere below Hellboy and Deadpool. For most fans of adaptations of comic books on the big screen, that will be enough. Full of good humor moments, the film doesn’t take itself seriously. We meet the archetype from 80 years of superhero comics with Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock, an Everyman, a down-and-out guy who can never get a break who gets caught making a few mistakes. Usually this archetype ends up captured by Batman (or insert other superhero here) and thrown into the slammer, but this time he encounters a body shifting alien presence that merges with him, blending the best and worst of both beings. Beginning with a crash landing as a SpaceX-inspired ship returns with some specimens from outer space, we eventually meet four alien beings, the lowliest of rank who calls himself Venom. Merged with Eddie, Venom needs to eat living lifeforms to continue on and he doesn’t grasp the subtleties of only killing bad guys just yet. Audiences will get to watch these aliens, the symbiotes, body-shift through several random characters (like Denzel Washington’s character in the movie Fallen), including the key cast and an animal or two–and it’s mostly great fun.
Venom is probably a rare time audiences will see Michelle Williams in a stock role. Usually every part she takes on results in an Oscar-worthy performance, but it’s nice seeing her do something less dramatic. And she gets some great scenes directly with Venom (including an Easter Egg scene that points straight back to the origin of the character originally discussed between Marvel Comics editor Jim Salicrup and writer/co-creator David Michelinie). This may be Tom Hardy’s best role since Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (where he was the only good thing in the movie), as he at last gets to play a spectrum of emotions and demonstrate a broad acting range. Despite what we heard in the movie trailers, his regional American accent is spot on in the final cut and his dialogue is delivered clearly–none of that crazy speech we saw him bring as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Not hiding behind make-up or masks as inMad Max: Fury Road, Dunkirk, or Star Trek: Nemesis, Hardy again proves he’s one of the best actors around. The sound department gets it just right–Hardy’s voice is also the voice transformed into the monstrous, demonic sounding Venom, and it’s unique and effective. No doubt some elaborate work went on behind the scenes for Hardy-as-Eddie to be arguing with Hardy-as-Venom. Some of the best lines, and laugh-out-loud moments come from Venom, reminiscent of Gollum and Sméagol.
