Venom

Smartly directed by Jim Gillespie from a script by various hands, Venom is from Dimension Films and follows its stylish, energetic and darkly amusing horror movie tradition.

Smartly directed by Jim Gillespie from a script by various hands, Venom is from Dimension Films and follows its stylish, energetic and darkly amusing horror movie tradition.

Acquits itself well enough. Gratuitously gory and derivative to the core, Venom manages to deliver some effective frights in between large swaths of voodoo gibberish.

Venom certainly can't be called a good movie, but within its genre it's perfectly palatable.

Venom certainly can't be called a good movie, but within its genre it's perfectly palatable.

This insipid take on the teens-in-peril formula, with a snake-bit ghoul chasing kids around the bayou, is truly a fangless task.

A mud-simple horror trudge set in a swamp colony of Abercrombie models.

A mud-simple horror trudge set in a swamp colony of Abercrombie models.

This insipid take on the teens-in-peril formula, with a snake-bit ghoul chasing kids around the bayou, is truly a fangless task.

A witless, derivative slasher flick.