Venom Coast

Once again the title and advertising pic caught my attention and I did not pay attention to the low reviews...What a divot, I should know better by now but I am always hoping to find a gem amongst the coal of movies and so subject my eyeballs to the most excruciatingly bad movie ordure!

Utterly atrocious acting from the very first word of the very first scene. Mind bendingly annoying characters, each and every one who you want to see mass murdered within the moment the girls start screeching on the boat and the men start abusing the ship by throwing cans around and uttering the worst dialogue possible, shaky camera work, feeble backstory, zero characterization but I held on in the hope there might be an iota of decent horror in there...sadly it was not to be! They could have thrown in some good looking eye candy but even that was a let down - does no one know the basics of making a horror movie these days?

Utter kerrap and I hate using bad language, I rarely do but sometimes only that simple and effective expletive will suffice to show my extreme displeasure at what movie producers throw money at these days - The current IMDB rating of 3.2 is overly generous!

Avoid this one like the plague, it is the equivalent of a cinematic dog tvrd!

Only in the 5th month of 2021 and this one already has made it into my top three worst movies of the year, not only for the worst script, camerawork and scenario's bust most of all the absolutely atrocious acting of the entire cast. Save yourself the angst of trying to fight through this complete rubbish and give it a massive miss.

Well When Looking For a Sorta-Kinda-Good Horror Flick I Mostly Lean Towards Something Like That Could Possibly Happen...Mmm, Maybe! First The Description Reads "WEALTHY"...So Why Bum a Ride On a Cruise Ship, Maybe, With a Total Stranger, Sure Of And His Family...That Mess Is NOT And Will Never Ever Happen...After She Talked Her Friends Into That Mess, My Eyes, Ears And Mind Said "NO MORE"...It May Be Entertaining To Others, But Not For This Movie Watcher!

I gotta appreciate a scrappy filmmaker who managed access to an interesting location, in this case a derelict cruise ship, and decided to build a micro-budget film around it. And I'll even give props for trying to make the film be about something more than just young people stalked by crazy killer family. But, sadly, despite the good intentions of the writer/director adding a veneer of wealth vs the 99%, or capitalizing on a location, he stumbles repeatedly once the actors start speaking and then fails miserably once the action gets underway. Could have used a bit more screenwriting to believably get the partiers on that particular ship - it's way too sketchy in appearance for anyone to think it could sail - and just making them stupid doesn't do the trick. But that's forgivable compared to the absolutely stupid behavior once the crazies come out. How many times do we have to see a character watch someone brutally murdered, and then see them rush back to the body (to try and wake them up?) with no idea where the killer just went. Cuz, guess what, the killer is behind them now!! Or how about hiding on each side of an open doorway while multiple crazies walk past, who - miracle of miracles - never look right or left or - I don't know - possess peripheral vision! People stop struggling the moment someone has a hard time tying them to a table (not a one-person job UNLESS the victim cooperates) and I won't even go into the Coast Guard who show up who know nothing about how the Coast Guard operates. Just so there's more potential victims. Attempts to give the crazy family some depth fails (but at least he tried), and everything remains overly familiar tropes from a hundred other Hillbilly Horror flicks. The actors range from amateurish to godawful but the characters they were given to play are one-dimensional and cartoonish. Even when they stop every once and a while to say "something serious". I'll excuse the fact we never believe the ship has put to sea, or that it could even be operated, cuz the director tries his best to shoot around it, but once everyone agrees to the set-up in the first place there's no one to root for (except to die) and no one behaves believably (not even when they die) and there is no suspense, or atmosphere, or decently staged kills to make sitting through the flick worth it. I'll give it 3/10 cuz it tried to be a little bit more, but ultimately failed.

If you put Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jason Takes Manhattan into a blender and added a pinch of Under Siege, Venom Coast would resemble something of the concoction that would result. As far as newer microbudget horror films go, it certainly ranks above average and features one of the most grotesque rogues' galleries of killers seen in a long time. Speaking of kills, the victims in this movie are dispatched in creative and gory ways with some very noteworthy practical effects on display.

Venom Coast is recommended for fans of the new breed of films commonly referred to as the "people of privilege suffer" genre seen in such recent movies as Infinity Pool, The Menu, and to an extent, the two as of this date produced Knives Out films. Not recommended for viewers who might have a penchant to feel superior to their material as a lot of the onscreen victims do make horrible decisions to their detriment in this film, but it's way too easy make an assertion that one would come out better than the characters from a position of seated armchair comfort. By far the biggest flaw that comes about in the film is the ending. Without saying much, things get messy for some of the characters involved in the story on account of a major mistake they make, but it comes off as a missed opportunity with how it is dealt with in the script. Instead of further addressing the moral complications of said mistake and fleshing out the ending with a bit more conflict and drama, the film takes a much easier route which is a bit of a shame. All in all though, Venom Coast is well made and highly entertaining. If you want a good old school popcorn slasher movie, it delivers.