Venus

Jaume Balagueró is a filmmaker who loves telling stories about horrors that take place in apartments. REC, REC², Sleep Tight, To Let, Inquilinos (short).. the list goes on. Venus is a genre-bender with heavy inclinations towards cosmic horror (loosely inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Dreams in the Witch House"). Venus begins as a crime-drama about stolen drugs, though the film drops early hints about the horrors that await the protagonist Lucía. Things aren't what they seem, and there are mysteries surrounding the building she takes refuge in, i.e. Her sister's residence. Fernando Navarro's writing gives nearly equal footing to both crime and horror angles, but I was obviously more invested in the latter.

The visual style of Balagueró is still something to watch out for, and when coupled with practical effects, the outcome in certain scenes is a Lovecraftian horror fan's wet dream. That said, the way both stories eventually blend into one isn't really smooth, and as a viewer, you have no choice but to lean into the absurdity of it all. Ester Expósito gets a meaty role and she's the only one in the film to come out looking absolutely badass. The other characters purely exist as victims or villains. The finale will leave some viewers perplexed (like, THAT'S IT?) whereas some may deem it poetic justice.

I had not heard about this 2022 Spanish horror movie titled "Venus" before I had the opportunity to sit down and watch it. And seeing that the movie was based on the short story "Dreams in the Witch House" by H. P. Lovecraft, of course I was rather interesting in watching it. Especially so since Lovecraft happens to be my favorite author.

Writer Fernando Navarro delivered a fair enough script for the movie. However, it wasn't particularly reminiscent of the H. P. Lovecraft atmosphere. Yeah, there was a bit of cosmic dread in the storyline, but saying that "Venus" was based on the "Dreams in the Witch House" short story might be stretching that fact quite a bit. Loosely based, in anything at all.

"Venus" certainly was a watchable enough movie, though it didn't make for a particularly outstanding or memorable movie experience. Nay, director Jaume Balagueró delivered a movie that you will watch once, then shelf it and never return to watch it a second time.

The narrative in the movie was somewhat monotonous. While there certainly was a drive forward in the narrative, the story was just lacking that particular spice to make it outstanding and memorable. It wasn't there, and that made "Venus" a somewhat bland horror experience. I was harboring a bit more expectations to the movie than what director Jaume Balagueró delivered, I have to admit that much.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but then again I am not overly familiar with Spanish cinema. But I will say that the actresses and actors on the cast list did good jobs.

Visually then "Venus" was okay. It wasn't a movie that was depending on a massive amount of special effects, and whatever effects were in the movie certainly worked well enough in favor of the atmosphere of the movie.

All in all, "Venus" is a watchable movie, albeit a somewhat forgettable and bland one.

My rating of "Venus" lands on a five out of ten stars.

And a mucho mucho dark horror story coming outta the rather bad ridden parts of madrid of spain, a new queen of the kingdom of darkness is to be found, the desperately searching disciples turns the world into turmoil to find the right person...

at the same time a local drug kingpin is robbed off in his club by one of the clubs dancers. The loot of human demolition aka blue crysalis tablets worth its weight in gold really makes havoc in the gangster community, and a killer squad is sent out to find the thieving magpie...

a very well made spanish mystery horror flick, not the most elaborated story, but neatly dark and bloodgored to the fingertips, cast well chosen for the acts, and the sleuth ideas of a plot will for sure make even the most squemish viewers shed a tear when the clashes of the titans starts. So a recommend from the grumpy old man.

Venus is a well put together film about a go go dancer making way with a bag of stolen drugs to her estranged sisters apartment only to find out that their is a much more sinister plot within the building.

The cinematography is absolutely ace, despite there being dark scenes we can clearly make out what is happening so major props to the lighting crew and the colorist ontop of the D. P.

The acting is pretty damn good all around, nothing pulls you out of the film and it's all believeable.

The special effects with the blood and gore was pretty awesome too, some of the cgi blood was a bit noticeable but the make-up department definitely helped with the practical to make it blend better.

I would say the only annoying factor with this film was the cgi planets, this kind of took me out the film as well as the weird piano motif when the sister and daughter have emotional moments together.

All in all I would say this is a great film to spend your time with alone and with the lights off.

An argument that doesn't seem to be where it's going, and in fact it doesn't know where it's going.

It's the first, bad version of a script that a teenage film student would write in a weekend.

Of course, the ending is not at all predictable, but if it is not at all it is unfortunately for the wrong reason: It is without a doubt the worst part of the film.

It's a bad student scenario.

From the start it doesn't work: a gogo dancer from the "Fabrik" nightclub in Madrid decides to steal pills (the only motive of the film is perhaps to allow the fashionable actress to be sexy while time) in the nightclub where she works and abandoning her car and her cell phone about three meters from the room... to walk to a building from where, inexplicably, she never leaves. Well, after waiting a long time for something exciting to happen, more than three-quarters of the way through the movie, it looks like something is going to happen...

There's satanic cultism in the air, a full moon looks like it's about to trigger an alien invasion, a goddess of evil approaches, and then finally poops, pretty much nothing.

Nothing works, nothing is even correct, it's not horror, it's no longer a thriller, the bad guys seem to come from teletubbies, who are surely smarter!

Ten minutes before the end the heroine, a badass, exclaims: And now we're going to dance; We tell ourselves that at least these last ten minutes will turn into an effective settling of scores against the bad guys, the witches, the monstrous servant, the goddess of evil...

We are treated to a minimalist fight with one of the bad guys, and a shotgun blast at an old woman!

And the ending, yes I'll come back to it again, is so stupid that I felt embarrassed for the director. Because it's hard to believe that the director of Rec could have made such an empty film. Sometimes it's better to retire on time. With such a poorly constructed storyline, it's hard to come up with something decent that can't even be described as cheap teen gore. Another great failure of Spanish cinema which pretends to make horror cinema and puts people to shame.

Don't waste your time on this.