Venus

A disco dancer , Lucía (Ester Expósito), steals a cache of pills and begins to be chased by gangsters , the film centers its action on the Venus Building , located on the outskirts of Madrid, where a badly injured woman flees to take refuge . Once there , she will discover that her true nightmare has only just begun. As Gogó girl at a disco, she flees after hitting the club where he works . Lucia taking refuge in an apartment block with her sister Rocío (Ángela Cremonte) and her niece Alba (Inés Fernández) .Along the way, the three discover that malevolent supernatural forces possess the building.

Creepy and eerie horror movie with thrills , chills , terrifying scenes invading the concrete corridors of a cursed apartment complex , strange rituals , twists and turns . This is a surprising , gory film starts with a noisy discoteque and follows to surprising us at a ghastly building by means of scary happenings and lots of plot twists . Including an interesting and mysterious script with plenty of superstition, witchery , ritualistic killings , shocking scenes and supernatural elements . It is a pity that the outcome does not live up to what has been stated up to that moment, destroying many of the findings , even with its convincing criminal part , which undoubtedly deserved that the marked line not depart so abruptly, and even ridiculously from the path . Second film of 'The Fear Collection', after the premiere of 'Veneciafrenia' in 2021, 'Venus' is also produced by Alex de la Iglesia , something that is noticeable in some aspects of the story , which , as happened in 'La Community' (2000) , surely his best film as a director , and which basically focuses on its peculiar inhabitants , all female , of a sinister and practically abandoned building . The trick of the unique setting also allows Balagueró himself to exploit, curiously on the fifteenth anniversary of REC , many of his genuine terrors , located in that abandoned building , where the traditional and the ancestral come together with a gloomy as well dark production design and achieving the best moments of the film . Regarding the leading role of Ester Expósito as a go-go girl , the main sufferer , and at the same time the heroine of the film , it should be noted that she succeeds physically , in a job that requires great involvement and effort , unfortunately this girl needs to vocalize better, an endemic disease that is spreading by several of the interpreters of the film, which exalts the true queen of 'Venus', a really sinister Magüi Mira, a veteran stage actress who gives a lesson in restlessness and restraint.

It displays an atmospheric and shading cinematography with full of lights and shades by cameraman Pablo Rosso . As well as a chilling and bizarre musical score by Vanessa Garde . The motion picture was professionally directed by Jaume Balagueró and in his usual style . Balagueró takes as reference a story by H. P. Lovecraft , 'Los sueños de la casa de la Bruja' or 'Witch house dreams' and based on his own script , written together with Fernando Navarro . After a dozen films , as many short films , and several works for television , Balaguero forged an unquestionable talent over the last three decades, the Catalan Jaume Balagueró no longer needs to confirm his interest as a filmmaker , while at the same time representing one of the few filmographies of great interest , within the generally barren national outlook . This Spanish director Balagueró is a good craftsman who has written/directed various succesful horror films , such as : Rec 2 , Rec 4 , Fragiles, Sleep Tight , Darkness , Los Sin Nombre, among others . Finally, Jaume Balagueró has perpetrated this nocturnal and bloody job, which is sadly spoiled in its ending part , that results to be absurd and some ridiculous and not precisely because of the Lovecraftian excesses, which are in the right measure , rather because of not having been able to finish off with originality enough such as contain his best films : 'The Nameless' (1999), the aforementioned 'REC' (2007), or 'While you sleep' (2011) , true examples of how to brilliantly close a plot .

Director Jaume Balagueró is internationally known mostly for his Rec zombie flicks, and one more time he dwells into the pits of the horror genre - and he delivers: Venus is a well made trip with a solid production and good acting. The story: a dancer girl takes a good load of drugs from a drug lord and then gets some more deep trouble because some elderly women have some devilish plans of their own. Venus is for sure not a new classic or brilliant movie and will not stir as much fuzz as the first Rec movie did, but in the endless ocean of mediocre to bad horror movies that are produced these days, it is an entertaining entry, and that's not the worst thing to say about a movie of that genre.

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.

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.

Whoa! A LOT of blood, violence, gangsters, drugs, twisted witches and enough WTF moments. And lead Ester Expósito is gorgeous.

Also inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. This was a BLAST. Well directed and shot. Well acted and an interesting watch throughout. I watched it in Spanish and my Spanish is far from good. But Venus was easy enough to follow and has shades of Rosemary's Baby, Hellraiser, and even for some reason reminded me of Troma's Rabid Grannies, even though it is nothing like that. Venus is a solid film and I was glued. This was fun.

Highly recommended Spanish horror. From the director of REC.