Warning: Spoilers Off applies to this page. Proceed at your own risk.
While certainly not as sunny and wholesome as most movies from the
Marvel Cinematic Universe,
Venom is no slouch when it comes to humour. In fact it could arguably be called the first superhero horror-comedy.
Movie
- The official trailer features Eddie giving a monologue about being a reporter. The audience probably thinks this is just narration... until it's revealed to be a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to a woman who's been following him.
Eddie: I'm a reporter. I follow people that do not wanna be followed. You have to learn how to hide in plain sight. I'm pretty good at it... But you? You suck.
- In the movie, he actually does this in the store, and someone noticed him talking to (seemingly) himself...
- When Eddie's neighbour starts playing loud music, then ignores Eddie when he politely asks him to turn it down, Eddie clenches his fists and screws up his face in such a way you'd swear he was trying to Hulk out.
- This is when we discover WHY Eddie's meditation exercises aren't working.
- He later confronts said neighbor after Venom bonded with him, and proceeds to give the neighbor such a scare with his/Venom's Nightmare Face that the neighbor promptly acquiesces and very quickly shuts the door.
- The neighbor later came out of his room during Eddie's fight with the LF agents and, seeing one agent thrown through the door of Eddie's room, promptly hides back inside.
- As Eddie prepares to leave the bar where he was getting drunk in, he declares his intention to "go home and chase [himself] around the room, playing hard to get".
- Maria the homeless woman swipes a stack of free newspapers and tries to sell them for $5 apiece. She claims that it's a personal delivery service, despite the fact that she sleeps right next to the newspaper stand.
- When Dora tells Eddie that the Life Foundation has been hiding aliens, Eddie's immediate reaction is to do a bad E.T. impression. Dora isn't amused.
Eddie: [Disbelieving] So you're saying you work with
aliens?
Dora: ...Yes. But we don't call them that.
Eddie: O_O
- After Eddie is infected, he decides to seek out his ex-fiancee Anne to show her the footage he got from Life Foundation, and meets her (and her new boyfriend) in a fancy restaurant. Given that the symbiote is hungry, Eddie starts to take food from the waiters and other tables (and spit them out), and the heat caused by the infection makes him dive into the lobster tank... where he eventually grabs one and eats it.
- The soundtrack for this scene is titled Panic at the Bistro.
- When Eddie starts gobbling food from the other patrons, Anne slaps him to get him to his senses. Eddie growls and starts reaching for Dan, awkwardly grabbing at his face before getting back to food.
- The climb into the tank wasn't in the script. Tom Hardy saw the tank on set and declared his intention of climbing into it, causing the set people to quickly reinforce the thing to make sure it could hold his weight and to swap out the live lobsters for fakes.
- Just the way Eddie casually chills (literally and metaphorically) in the lobster tank as though relaxing in a spa Jacuzzi, then proceeds to savagely gnaw off a lobster's head like a deranged cannibal.
- What makes it even more funnier is that though Venom is at a restaurant, which is surrounded by a lot of people, it doesn't try to eat any of them despite being very hungry. Instead, it looks for something that is alive but not human, which is why it makes Eddie go into that tank full of lobsters, so that it can at least eat something alive without offending him (for now).
- When Eddie is diagnosed as having a parasite:
Eddie: This parasite, would it be, like, be able to make me, I dunno... like, climb a really... really, really tall tree, but super, super fast?
Venom: YES. WE JUST DID. - The Life Foundation's security team bursts into Eddie's apartment and "greets" him, and the symbiote's response more or less equals the audience's:
Roland Treece: [menacingly] Hello, Eddie.
Venom: Who the hell is this guy?!
- Eddie trying to surrender and put his hands up, and Venom putting them back down. Repeatedly.
Venom: You are making us look bad!
Eddie: No, I am...not!
Venom: Yes, you are!
Eddie: No, I'm not!
Venom: Yes, you are!
Eddie: No, I'm not!
Venom: Why would you do that?!
Eddie: Because it's a very sensible thing to do?!
Venom: I will take care of this myself!
- When Eddie grows tendrils to knock one of Drake's mooks out of his apartment window, his reaction is to look even more bewildered than the remaining thugs and mutter: "I dunno."
- While picking up another Mook by the collar and about to punch him, Eddie can only blurt "I'm so sorry about your friend!", before the symbiote carries out the act. It's the rather meek and ashamed way Eddie says it that makes it humorous.
- After Eddie and the symbiote defeat Drake's goons who came to get the symbiote back:
Eddie: [meekly] Why would we do that?
Venom: [like it's explaining something obvious to a child] Pile of bodies... pile of heads.
- Once Eddie sees Venom instead of his own reflection, and the symbiote doesn't take well being called "parasite".
- After Venom saves Eddie one too many times in the motorcycle chase, Eddie says he's starting to like this... and flies away after being blindsided by a car.
Treece: You have been a serious pain in the ass for me, Eddie.
Eddie: [clearly in shock] Well you know... I aim to please.
- Earlier, Venom yanks Eddie's head down with a tentacle while "shouting" "Duck!" A drone whizzes over Eddie's head and explodes.
Eddie: [still freaking out] Thank you!
Venom: [cheerfully] You're welcome!
- When Venom is threatening to eat the mook that was chasing Eddie, a passer-by decides to record it.
- After the motorcycle chasem Eddie and Venom escape from the authorities by diving into the water and swimming to a lighthouse. While Eddie questions what's going on, he brings up the topic of Venom eating people, as Eddie understandably has issues with this:
Eddie: Are you gonna... Are you gonna eat anybody else?
Venom: Most likely. Eddie: Oh... god...
- Eddie mentions early in the film that he doesn't like heights. Later when he has to give something to his ex-boss and can't use the elevator to go up, Venom asks him in a very nonchalant way:
Venom: You want up? Well, why didn’t you just say?
- Cue Eddie nervously looking up the really tall skyscraper.
- The aforementioned "something" is his phone with photo evidence of Life Foundation's unscrupulous testing of the symbiotes. Eddie leaves a note with an arrow pointing to it labelled "Do the right thing!"... and then he appends a "SHITHEAD!" to it.
- After Eddie finishes his business in the office, Venom tells him to jump out the window as it would be faster, easier, and stealthier. Eddie, however, has already been through two Super Window Jumps and is getting a bit sick of doing them; cut to Eddie pushing the elevator call button.
Venom: Jump.
[cuts to Eddie standing in front of the elevator] Venom: Pussy.
- Venom and Eddie
mockingly imitating hostile SWAT Officers shouting for everyone to put on gas masks, by putting on their own mask.Eddie: You do not wanna do this, trust me.
SWAT Leader: Mask!
SWAT Trooper: Copy!
Eddie: Alright, have it your own way... Mask!
Venom: Copy! [covers Eddie's body]
- During this scene, the good old Wilhelm Scream plays while Venom commences his savage beatdown.
- Even funnier? Some people have pointed out how similar Venom using the thug to swing at his allies as well as tossing him around like a rag doll was similar to The Hulk violently swinging Loki or Thor.
- While Carlton Drake is interrogating Eddie on the whereabouts of the symbiote, Eddie lays it out plain and simple.
Eddie: Let me tell you something, buddy, alright? Just man to man. Because I have spent a significant amount of time, alright, with one of these creatures
up my ass!
It's not a lot of fun. - Drake's response to Eddie calling him insane. It's delivered in such a tone that makes it hard to tell if he's being serious or not, and either interpretation is amusing.
Drake: That hurts. Long journal entry about that tonight.
- Drake suddenly morphs into Riot to try and intimidate Eddie.
Eddie: [terrified] Oh, my God! That is the ugliest looking thing I have ever seen!
- Eddie's reaction to learning Drake has a symbiote too, after he leaves the room.
Eddie: He has one up his ass, too.
- Afterwards, a mild, even dark moment between Riot and Drake. While Riot's Lack of Empathy toward the deaths of his kind isn't funny, this following part is:
Drake: [is silent, but then corrects him] Wherever
we lead.
Riot: Yes, we. - After Drake finishes his interrogation, Eddie is walked out into the woods to be executed. Even as he's about to die, he's still snarking at the guards about how they're trying to "walk [him] to death".
- After Venom is separated from Eddie, it ends up using Anne to get back to him. Since the symbiote is actually a Shipper on Deck for them, it chooses to be transferred from Anne to Eddie via Big Damn Kiss.
- That's not getting into how when Venom is possessing Anne. It acts weirdly sultry when they find Eddie.
- The conversation Eddie and Anne have after he takes back the symbiote, and Anne's shock from the symbiote's diet.
Anne: Oh no. I just bit that guy's head off.
Eddie: I know. I know. I've been there. It's not fun.
- A deleted take for this scene involved Venom trying to add a bit of levity.
Eddie: Wh- who exactly was I kissing just then?
Anne: Mostly me.
Venom: WELL ACTUALLY, IT WAS MOSTLY ME!* Said in the loudest, goofiest growl possible.
Eddie: Oh god.
- Venom straight up confessing that he's a loser in his home world, and then he adds "Like you" towards Eddie.
- When Eddie and Venom are about to face Riot, this conversation ensues:
Eddie: Oh, Jesus! You can take this guy right?
Venom: He has got shit you have never seen.
Eddie: What does that mean? What are our chances?
Venom: [taking a moment to think] Pretty much... zero.
Eddie: ...
Fuck it. Let's go save the planet, then.
- Riot's "Venom, get on the rocket!" He sounds like an angry parent ordering his misbehaving son into a car.
- Once Venom refuses to do so, Riot rather instantaneously demands him to die, as if he spurted it out thoughtlessly in a brief emotional fit.
- It becomes even funnier when you remember that in the comics, Riot was actually one of Venom’s spawn.
- Eddie and Anne talking on her front steps after the climax of the film, and Venom's thoughts on the situation.
- As Eddie has a chat with Stan Lee, Venom wants to eat Stan's dog.
- Stan's role is listed in the credits as "Dapper Dog Walker".
- The fact that he's somehow aware of the fact that Eddie and Venom are sharing a body.
- Eddie, while walking down the street, says to the symbiote his "terms and conditions".
Eddie: The deal is you will only ever be allowed to touch, harm, hurt, possibly — very possibly — eat very, very bad people.
- While they are having this conversation, they are walking down a busy street. Naturally, only Eddie can hear Venom. So, while they're walking and talking, they're getting some pretty odd looks.
- Then later, Eddie goes to the convenience store to buy food that Venom likes (Tater Tots and Chocolate) when he sees the same goon shaking down Mrs. Chen for money that appeared in the beginning of the movie. Cut to Eddie and Venom:
Venom: Bad guy, right?
Eddie: Yup.
- At that point, Venom takes care of the thug by eating him. It's pretty gruesome, but the lead up to it is pure Black Comedy. How does Venom, this bizarre, monstrous, alien thing decide to threaten his victims? By quoting The Princess Bride at them.
Venom: You come in here again — in fact, you go anywhere in this city preying on innocent people, and we will find you. And eat both your arms, and then both of your legs and then we will eat your face right off your head! Do you understand?
- Even better? Venom is talking about turning him into a literal piece of shit!
- For others, the "turd in the wind" line itself — which is presented as a joke — is so cringe-inducingly bad that it loops around to being funny for the wrong reasons, like the notoriously-awful "Bad Pussy" quip from Game of Thrones.
- And immediately afterwards, when the symbiote retracts into his body Eddie is chewing and licking his lips, and basically brushes off the whole thing as "[having] a parasite". And then he walks off casually wishing the traumatized store owner a good night. Venom gets annoyed at the "parasite" joke and demands that he apologize. They go back and forth like Vitriolic Best Buds before Eddie says sorry. When asked by Eddie what they should do next, Venom responds:
Venom: The way I see it, we can do whatever we want.
- Oh, and Mrs. Chen doesn't seem all that bothered by seeing a half-alien vigilante bite a head off. Or maybe she was bothered, but the actress didn't express it properly. She just says, "What the hell was that?" in a relatively chill tone after Eddie turns back.
- A Deleted Scene consists of Venom rampaging on a car with the alarm on.
- Another Deleted Scene has Venom passing on "six hundred million years of alien wisdom" to Eddie.
Venom: Try.
Eddie: Try?
Venom: Harder.
Eddie: Yes?
Venom: Not. To be a dick.
- Eddie's appearance overall. He subverts the usual approach taken by Marvel's other superhero films, and spends his time post-breakup looking absolutely haggard with humdrum jeans and a hoodie. He never changes out of them, doesn't shower or even get a shirtless scene. He just gets sweatier and dirtier as the film goes on, constantly scared and distressed by the situations he finds himself in.
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