The sleek and sinister Jacmel (Klaus Kinski) has conspired with limo driver Dave (Oliver Reed) and maid Louise (Susan George) to kidnap young Philip (Lance Holcomb), the son of a wealthy family. When Philip’s mother heads out of town, leaving him in the care of his famous hunter grandfather Howard (Sterling Hayden), the criminals put their plan into action, holding the boy and his grandpa hostage for ransom. What they didn’t plan on was a bit of a mix-up at the pet store just prior to their scheme. You see, Philip is a collector of all manner of pets and has chosen that day to get a new pet snake. The problem is that his harmless garden snake pet was accidentally shipped to the Department of Toxicology, and he has taken home instead the extremely deadly black mamba, one of the most dangerous snakes in the world. And unfortunately for everyone involved, including Jacmel and crew, the black mamba gets loose. To make matters worse, the trigger happy Dave blows away a cop who had just stopped by to check up on the snake SNAFU, bringing the entire police force down on their heads. Now trapped between Scotland Yard’s best and an aggressive and venomous reptile, Jacmel and crew may be getting desperate to do anything necessary to escape.

Venom is a crackerjack pot-boiler full of suspense that gets ratcheted up moment to moment with an almost childish glee, and it’s a hell of a fun time all the way. The premise here is golden and director Piers Haggard (The Blood on Satan’s Claw) milks it for all it’s worth. He uses some nice POV shots of the snake crawling around in the ducts and some quick cutting of the attack scenes to drum up a further sense of danger. Haggard is aided by a smart, briskly paced script from Robert Carrington (whose script for Wait Until Dark is a classic hallmark of suspense cinema) which hews fairly closely to the original novel by Alan Scholefield . While all the behind-the-scenes drama might have been nightmarish (more on that later), getting Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed paired together as kidnappers is absolute dynamite on screen. They play off one another really well with Kinski’s sly and calculating Jacmel offering a great juxtaposition to Reed’s explosive and impulsive Dave (plus any movie featuring Oliver Reed getting bitten in the dick by a snake already has a leg up). Even the supporting roles are stacked with great turns from the aforementioned Sterling Hayden and Susan George as well as actors like Sarah Miles as a snake specialist who gets roped into the kidnapping, Nicol Williamson as the intense and reliable police commander in charge of the standoff outside and even the great Michael Gough in a small role as a zoologist recruited to capture the snake.

Blue Underground has done a bang-up job on this new 4K UHD transfer by delivering a highly filmic experience not unlike what those who first saw the film screened in theaters might have seen. The ultra high resolution brings out the grain levels to a degree that some who aren’t as seasoned in watching older films in 4K might find the grain on the heavy side. But the trade off is an excellent depth of field and extreme clarity in the image. Small background details pop and the black levels are consistent and deep. Watching it with the DolbyVision HDR turned on like I did brings out the details even more. Overall a very nice job from BU. The Dolby Atmos surround sound audio mix is similarly very nicely done with a great sense of immersion, especially during the more action-oriented scenes like the snake attacks. We also get a ton of extras here. Blue Underground had released Venom previously back in 2016 with a (surprisingly candid) audio commentary with director Piers Haggard, a nice essay from Michael Gingold on the full troubled history of the film and a smattering of other things like trailers and a stills gallery. This new edition includes all of those plus lots of new stuff to sink your fangs into (yes, I’m a ham… so what?). First we have an additional audio commentary with film historians Troy Howarth, Nathaniel Thompson and Eugenio Ercolani. If you’ve listened to a commentary featuring these guys before or read any of the many books or essays they’ve published, then you know that they know their stuff. As such the commentary is packed with lots of info about the making of the film, the cast and crew involved and all sorts of other interesting factoids. Then we have two new interviews with crew members Michael Bradsell (editor and 2nd unit director) and Nick Dudman (make-up artist). Both are very honest and forthright about the troubles on set, from the leaving of original director Tobe Hooper (Kinski bragged later about bullying him into quitting the movie but the studio’s official stance is that it was over “creative differences”) to the outsized off-screen shenanigans of Kinski and Reed who proved to be two distinctly different breeds of “difficult to work with”. We also get an interview with author and critic Kim Newman discussing the film, and he always has interesting things to say. I also appreciated his honestly about the film as well. You can tell he didn’t find it a masterpiece or anything, but that he still had fun with it. Also included is a new interview with The Dark Side magazine editor Allan Bryce as well as an expanded poster and still gallery. So yea, this thing is absolutely stacked.

Venom is a slick, tense keg of gunpowder waiting to explode, and I dug the hell out of it! Plus this new release of the film offers much improved visual quality and a ton of new extras which are as interesting to sift through as the main feature itself. Highly recommended!