"Hey, can you turn your music down, please? Because I'm having a really hard time..."
Years after Venom's theatrical debut in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3, Marvel's most recognizable Anti-Hero makes his return to the big screen as the star of his own film. Although Venom may be the hero of this story, it doesn't make him any less terrifying, and in fact manages to make him even more horrifying than his previous cinematic portrayal.
Nightmare Fuel pages are Spoilers Off, so all spoilers are unmarked!
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Trailers
- While Eddie is the hero of this story, he makes sure to remind us that the symbiote itself is still as bad as ever when he compares having it to having a demon.
- Making it worse is when the symbiote talks... yes THE SYMBIOTE CAN TALK TO HIM. Its voice sounds like it's a demonic whisper. Most likely because it's a predator but still... it almost sounds like a more gravely Eddie Brock (and indeed, it is; Tom Hardy voices Eddie and Venom).
- We finally get a look at what Venom looks like, and it is AWESOME in its creepiness
.- The way Eddie becomes Venom. As the symbiote's tendrils pour onto his face, his head becomes covered in layers and layers of sharp teeth that looks very much like a shark's, and could easily rip a person into pieces with. The lens form from the back of the head as well, and when the symbiote has fully bonded with Eddie, his voice becomes a deep growling whisper. Needless to say, this iteration of Venom is shaping up to be much, much scarier than Spider-Man 3's Venom could even dream to be.
- There now exists another photo◊ of Venom. Holy hell, that grin...
- Making matters worse is the pseudo-Glasgow Grin that makes Venom look like even more of a deranged monster.
- Venom's expressive white eyes manage to take the most recognisable part of Deadpool's look and plunge it straight back into being creepy.
- The second trailer showed us probably the one thing the comics never analyzed: How the symbiote bonds to someone. In the comics (and arguably the cartoons), the symbiote just bonded to a host and that's it. The movie however makes it clear that when it bonds to someone, it is NOT A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE.
- Carlton Drake establishes himself as "an EVIL person" by mentioning how the Earth is in critical condition and that humanity's worth is at an all-time low. With his own twisted logic, Drake comes to the conclusion that the symbiotes are a superior species that will cull the masses and restore balance.
- The third trailer is even worse, showcasing some truly horrifying moments for both the film itself AND Venom. Such as:
- Eddie clashing with another symbiote, which is trying to rip the symbiote off of Eddie.
- The symbiote has so much control over Eddie's body that he can fix broken bones, hold him against a wall and actually sprout out of Eddie's body and actually talk to him, face-to-face.
- That broken bones one is painful to watch despite how short the shot is. Eddie's leg is bent into a "J" shape, and Venom just floods over it and snaps it back into shape.
- At one point in the trailer, Eddie has a brief relapse during the apartment fight, where he briefly turns into a snarling monster with fangs and dark blue, almost black eyes. Upon looking at his full Venom form and back to this, it looks less like a relapse and more like Venom manifesting from beneath Eddie's face.
- In a possible Shout-Out to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, we see one of Riot's hosts turn her arm into a blade. But unlike the T-1000 who could only stab people, she can also fire darts from her body killing anyone within radius of her.
- Venom holds a man by the neck in a grocery, and after describing what he's going to do to the man, concludes it with both Eddie and Venom saying "We are Venom." We are then treated to a POV shot of the criminal where Venom opens his mouth and engulfs the entire screen. Tom Hardy's "biting people's head off issue" quote wasn't a joke.Criminal: What the Hell Are You?
Venom: (face splits, revealing Eddie on one side and Venom on the other) We... are Venom.[cue Venom opening his mouth and rushing towards the screen] - As Venom describes what he will do to the Mook, his Slasher Smile remains completely apparent and unwavering, meaning that Venom is intent on making the criminal live a Fate Worse than Death, not just due to his Horrifying Hero tendencies, but just for laughs. He also is clearly absolutely enjoying the look of shit-spewing fear the criminal has on his face, digging the knife in deeper as he describes the criminal's Cruel and Unusual Death before him, happily grinning at him the whole time. Faux Affably Evil at its scariest.
- The criminal's reaction to Venom's threat is horrifyingly humanizing for him. He's barely able to choke out a plea of "No... no..." as Venom threatens to eat his limbs and he looks on the verge of crying as the Symbiote's To the Pain speech continues. The worst thing is that all Venom's doing to hold him in place is to put his hand on the criminal's shoulder. The criminal seems either paralyzed in fear at what's inevitably going to happen to him, or is too afraid to run because he thinks Venom will do something worse to him if he tries.
- Blink and you’ll miss it but as the symbiote reforms to cover Eddie's face, you can see Brock smile before eating the thug's head off. Brock is starting to enjoy the symbiotes I'm a Humanitarian tendencies. This is especially notable as Eddie in the comics was against these tendencies.
- In the second trailer, Eddie expressed fear and apprehension at Venom and tried to control it. In the third trailer...* Eddie: That power... It's not completely awful.
- In the second trailer, Eddie expressed fear and apprehension at Venom and tried to control it. In the third trailer...*
- A comedic line in the first trailer is turned into terrifying one with an addition from the later trailers:Venom: (after Eddie takes out goons with Venom's help) Outstanding! Now, let's bite all their heads off and pile them up in the corner.Eddie: (unnerved) Why would we do that?
Film
- The Riot symbiote doesn't care about its hosts, going so far as to possess a frail old woman and a little girl, then gradually eating them from the inside out before moving onto another host. Even worse, it is shown that a symbiote has no use for a brain-dead host, and whenever Venom takes control of Eddie, Eddie can see and hear everything that's happening, but he has enough autonomy to voice an opinion. These three victims have nothing like that, but they were all likely still fully aware and conscious as a homicidal symbiote piloted around their bodies from one place to the other.
- Out of the three of Riot's victims, the first one, the paramedic, probably had it the worst. She was just doing her job, getting a barely-alive astronaut into the ambulance to take him to a hospital, when suddenly silver tentacles burst from the man's face and grab her and kill the driver of the ambulance, causing a terrible crash. Her body, now being used as a puppet, tears a hole in the solid metal ambulance and begins shambling down the road, even as her leg, which is so broken that there is an obvious bone shard jutting out, slowly begins to heal.
- The mother lode of fear that comes with the young girl being taken over by Riot. Imagine being that young, on a trip with your parents who are absolutely doing their best to make sure you don't get lost in the crowds. Then you go into the washroom with your mother, and suddenly this...evil beast that you have obviously never heard of or seen before just takes over your body, controls every inch of your being including your vocal cords, and you have no way to tell anyone that something is wrong.
- And just for the cherry on top of the Nightmare flavored sundae, all of the hosts look and behave a lot like zombies, especially the paramedic when she crawls out of the flipped van in a rather unsettling manner as well as the astronaut that attacks her.
- When Eddie finds Maria, a homeless woman he's friends with, imprisoned at the Life Foundation, he tries to get her out, but triggers an alarm, which floods her containment chamber with gas, possibly killing her. By the time Eddie manages to break her out, the Venom symbiote that was residing in her has taken over and forces itself on him.
- When a mook shoots Venom from behind, Venom turns around, walks up to him and bites his head off. Onscreen. While it’s expected from Venom and it’s relatively quick, it’s bound to take anyone who thought the PG-13 rating would neuter the film by surprise.
- The symbiotes need food. Living food.Eddie: You just bit a guy's head off!
Venom: Fuel in the tank. - This clip shows Venom fighting off a SWAT team, and he is brutal. Leaping onto a balcony, he yanks one man off and sends him plummeting to the ground. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, he grabs the poor guy and throws him around like a ragdoll, knocking out the other officers. The terrifying thing is just how effortlessly he takes out the whole squad. It's like the "Puny God" scene, but played for horror.
- Near the start of the scene, he catches one of the SWAT team's smoke grenades - and crushes it with one hand!
- Eddie and Venom are escaping Drake's squad on motorcycle, but a moment's inattention results in them getting hit by a truck. Eddie is pretty badly injured, lying on the road with his limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Then Venom fully emerges as Treece threatens them, healing Eddie in a cringe-inducing process.
- It's discovered late in the film that Eddie's bond to the symbiote is slowly rotting away his internal organs. And this is supposed to be a completely normal part of the process.
- Or worse, the symbiote later says it's hungry, and that Brock's liver looks tasty - so it wasn't rotting his organs so much as it was eating them.
- In the middle of interrogating Brock, Drake suddenly morphs into Riot and roars in his face.Drake: This is the last time I'm gonna ask you. Where is my symbiote?
Eddie: I have no idea.
Riot: WHEEERRE IS HE?! WHEEERRRE'S VENOM?!! - Riot coming out in the control room, creating massive axes out of his hands. With just a sweep, he slices apart all his workers whose only crime was doing their job for this psychopath and "rewarded" with mass murder.
- Cletus Kasady only makes less than 2 minutes worth of an appearance, yet his very presence can send a chill down your spine. The guy's an insane serial killer whom even the FBI are afraid of, and is placed inside a maximum security cell. When Eddie meets the guy, Cletus is already expecting him and is writing "Welcome Eddie" on his cell walls with his blood, and talks about patterns of arterial spray. Worst of all? What he has to say...Cletus: When I get out of here, and I will... There's gonna be carnage.
- The extended version of this scene on the DVD/Blu-Ray release manages to make him even creepier, where at one point he describes sucking out and eating the eyeballs of at least one of his victims.Cletus: Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside.
- The extended version
- And finally, the full context of the second trailer's ending: it's the film's ending. Venom's threat towards the criminal wasn't just out of sadistic glee, but also seemingly out of Tranquil Fury. Throughout the film, the only form of anger Venom's shown is just Unstoppable Rage, so to see him give such an outright murderous warning to a criminal without even raising his voice is actually even more terrifying than seeing him roar out "PARASITE?!!".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?Criminal: ...Please—
Venom: Yes. So, you will be this armless...legless, faceless thing, won't you? Rolling down the street - like a turd, in the wind. Do you feel me?Criminal: What the Hell Are You?
Venom: (half of face opens to reveal Eddie's) We... are Venom. (Beat) On second thought...Criminal: Please...
(CHOMP)- And this time he doesn't stop at just the head. He swallows the guy whole!
