Venom (1975)

Sadly Over-hyped

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Released in 1971 (but not until '75 in the USA), "Spider's Venom" (aka "The Legend of Spider Forest" and "Venom") is a mystery/horror about an artist (Simon Brent) who stumbles upon a village with secrets in the Black Forest, Germany: A beautiful redhead (Neda Arneric) frolics the local woods and seemingly leads men to their deaths, but people in the hamlet only willingly speak of it in hushed tones late at night when the fires burn low. The tangled web includes lethal spiders, neurotoxin and mad Nazi doctors. Sheila Allen is also on hand.The protagonist looks like an early 70's rock star (e.g. Jim Morrison) and I noticed an early 70's rock/prog rock soundtrack during the tavern sequence (think Jethro Tull or ELO). Arneric is a serious cutie and there's some tame, tasteful nudity. I favor the haunting backwoods European mood. It was directed by Peter Sykes, whose next film would be Hammer's "Demons of the Mind (1972); he also directed Hammer's penultimate "To the Devil a Daughter" (1976) and, believe it or not, "The Jesus Film" (1979).Unfortunately, the editing is amateurish, like a lot of 70's low-budget Euro flicks; it's just awkwardly done and takes you right out of the movie. Pictures like this make you praise Hammer Films in all their low-budget glory. Also, the DVD that I viewed (which is probably the only form of the movie available) had terrible audio and I could only make out about 50% of the dubbed verbiage; no kidding.The film runs 97 minutes and was shot at Twickenham Film Studios, St Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, England with establishing shots of the Alps. WRITERS: Derek Ford & Donald Ford, with additional dialogue by Christopher Wicking. GRADE: C

With Halloween coming up,I started talking to a family friend about Horror movies that he was looking for.Telling me about an interesting-sounding title that he had spotted when leaving HMV,I searched round the films alt titles and finally found the DVD being sold at a good price on Amazon UK,which led to me getting ready to enter the spider forest.The plot:Visiting a German village in order to take some wild life photos, photographer Paul Greville spots a mysterious girl in the woods with a scar that looks like a spider on her shoulders.Attempting to get more info from the villagers about the stranger, Greville finds himself being completely stopped in his tracks,with the towns people whispering that any man who gets near the girl is doomed to die.Pressing the town leaders, Greville is told that the mysterious figure is a "troubled girl" called Anna,who he should forget about if he knows what is best for him. Desperate to discover what Anna's "curse" is, Greville starts to investigate the webs of the towns peoples secret and lies.View on the film:Dipping the opening scene in green tint,director Peter Sykes & cinematographer Peter Jessop give the German village a lush,Folk Horror appearance,with the warm greens and yellows of the woods allowing the deadly spiders (and deadlier humans) to lurk hidden in the background.Hitting Greville's (played by a rugged Simon Brent)battles with the villagers with a firm thump,Sykes gives the final spiders webs an unexpected, pristine Sci-Fi shine,as Greville untangles the web of Anna's "curse."Stepping on all the villagers toes,the screenplay by Christopher Wicking and Derek & Donald Ford digs into a paranoid Folk Horror vein,as Greville's obsession with learning more about Anna leads to him brushing against the hushed myths of the village,and the rulers of the town who want to keep those myths crawling.Whilst the turn into Sci- Fi for the final cobweb is unexpected,the writers layer the paranoia on the lead villagers shoulders and deliver a deliciously strange final web.

Quite a curio this.'Legend of The Spider Forest' is partly shot in what appears to be the picturesque Bavarian mountains, concerning the bizarre, esoteric legend of the deadly Spider Woman; played by the truly delicious Nada Arneric. Various libidinous young men are dying in the uber spooky forest; is it really the dastardly machinations of the nubile Arneric or is there something far more sinister afoot? Throw in the ubiquitous mad German scientist and you have a giddy mish- mash of unctuous horror goodness that is bound to appeal to most Brit horror completists!

In an opening scene in black and white with a blue tint to it, a young man and woman skinnydip together, and then go into the woods for a little sex. A large shadow of a spider looms, and the man is attacked. The woman has a birthmark or tattoo of a spider on her. There's seemingly some full-frontal nudity in a longshot, and there is toplessness despite the PG rating! Later there's some sadistic beatings and whippings. The Legend of Spider Forest almost makes this sound like it's for kids: nope!I watched this on a double-sided DVD as Spider's Venom (the other title is Virgin Terror). Unfortunately full-screen, and I had to actually zoom the picture out a bit since it went beyond the edges of the screen. Probably taken from a videotape rather than a film print, given a weird glitch about thirty-five minutes in. Additionally, the sound quality is awful - whoever did the transfer wasn't checking the levels and it's particularly bad when the music swells and some notes just become loud hums and there's pops and crackles. So "Miracle Pictures a Division of PMC Corp. - Delaware," thanks for releasing this, but what a terrible job you did!After the opening scene, the picture turns to color. Paul, a photographer/artist drives into a small German village and he manages to take a photo of the woman with the spider marking that he calls a scar. However, his pictures are stolen. He's met with a mixture of friendliness and hostility at the local pub. The mill owner shares a bottle of wine with him, and tries to interest him in his daughter. He does in fact wind up in bed with her shortly later, where they have a vigorous session, though it isn't graphic at all.Paul wants to find out who the young woman is, and the townspeople want him to leave. He knows that there had been some paintings, including a Bosch, that had disappeared during WWII from the church. He finds one by a fresh body in the forest, but they too disappear.The villagers do speak some German that isn't subtitled (putting us in Paul's shoes, I guess). The girl with the spider mark also sings some song in German as well.Eventually, the mystery is solved along with a bizarre bit of transvestism that adds nothing. Cue the big fire, so common in Gothic horror movies of the 60s and 70s. Not bad, but a better release is clearly needed for a real idea of the quality of the movie.