NOTE: The below Blu-ray and 4K UHD captures were taken directly from the respective disc.

ADDITION: Blue Underground 4K UHD (October 2026): Blue Underground has transferred Piers Haggard's Venom to Blu-ray and 4K UHD. Back in 2017 we compared the 2001 Force Video PAL DVD to the 2003 Blue Underground DVD and to vs. 2016 Blue Underground Blu-ray and the 2017 Blue Underground (Re-Release) Blu-ray HERE.

Blue Underground’s new 4K UHD of Venom comes from a brand-new restoration, scanned in 4K 16-bit from the 35mm interpositive. That is a different source from their 2016-2017 Blu-ray, which was a 2K transfer from the negative. The 4K UHD offers both Dolby Vision and HDR10, with a video bitrate over double that of the Blu-ray included in the package and over 3X that of the 2016 single-layered disc. The included Blu-ray is not a reissue of the earlier release. It is a fresh 1080P encode of the new restoration on a dual-layered disc, with a video bitrate over 1.4X the 2016 Blu-ray. The differences are apparent immediately, and they go beyond a simple warming of the image: the film has been re-timed. The lamp-lit townhouse interiors gain rich golden tones in the wood paneling and ruddier, healthier skin, while more neutrally lit scenes render whites cleaner than the creamy-yellow cast of the 2016 disc. Kinski’s coat and the hallway walls look truer, and his ice-blue eyes pop. Contrast is deeper, with richer black levels. Very dark costumes edge closer to solid black where the old disc showed a touch more fold detail, but the added depth suits Gilbert Taylor’s moody, shadowy cinematography. Most importantly, the grain is back. The 2016 Blu-ray looked smooth, almost waxy, in close-ups. The new transfers show a natural, film-like grain structure that carries real texture: pores, lashes and individual strands of Susan George’s hair. The 4K UHD resolves this most finely, with the tightest grain and the most detail, to the point that the hand-lettered parts lists on the Brady Motors shop front become legible. The new Blu-ray sits a step behind but is still a significant upgrade over 2016. Its colors also read a touch more saturated than the 4K’s, pushing that shop front to a hot orange where the 4K looks more like weathered paint on a gray London day.

It is likely that the monitor you are seeing this review is not an HDR-compatible display (High Dynamic Range) or Dolby Vision, where each pixel can be assigned with a wider and notably granular range of color and light. Our capture software if simulating the HDR (in a uniform manner) for standard monitors. This should make it easier for us to review more 4K UHD titles in the future and give you a decent idea of its attributes on your system. So our captures may not support the exact same colors (coolness of skin tones, brighter or darker hues etc.) as the 4K system at your home. But the framing, detail, grain texture support etc. are, generally, not effected by this simulation representation.

NOTE: We have added 30 more large resolution 4K UHD captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE.

Audio has been overhauled as well. Both new discs carry a new Dolby Atmos mix (TrueHD 7.1, 24-bit), which replaces the 2016 disc’s DTS-HD Master 7.1. They also offer DTS-HD Master 5.1 and 2.0 tracks, with one curiosity. On the Blu-ray those two tracks are 24-bit, but on the 4K UHD both are 16-bit, and the 5.1 has a noticeably lower bitrate. So viewers who prefer the non-Atmos options are actually better served by the included Blu-ray. Either way, the lossless 5.1 is an improvement on the lossy Dolby Digital EX surround of the 2016 disc. Michael Kamen’s score, sparse and percussive with sudden violent stabs, rides the film’s sporadic tension well. There are optional English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles on both discs (both are Region FREE.)

NOTE: For Atmos, many non-compliant systems will recognize it as TrueHD 7.1, but from Wikipedia: "Because of limited bandwidth and lack of processing power, Atmos in home theaters is not a real-time mix rendered the same way as in cinemas. The substream is added to Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus. This substream only represents a losslessly encoded fully object-based mix. This substream does not include all 128 objects separated. This is not a matrix-encoded channel, but a spatially-encoded digital channel. Atmos in home theaters can support 24.1.10 channel, but it is not an object-based real-time rendering. Filmmakers need to remix and render the TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks with Dolby Media Producer."

Blue Underground carry over the 2003 audio commentary with director Piers Haggard, and it remains a valuable listen. Haggard is candid about inheriting the production at very short notice after Tobe Hooper’s departure, and about how that limited the stylistic flourishes and script changes he would have liked to make. He talks frankly about the shooting schedule and budget, and admits that the ‘animal attack’ elements felt dated even at the time. He also pinpoints the exact scene where Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski fell out. His fondness for Reed as an actor comes through clearly, along with his wry observation that the black mamba was the nicest person on set.

New to this edition is a second commentary from film historians Troy Howarth (author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films), Nathaniel Thompson (FrightFest Guide to Vampire Movies) and Eugenio Ercolani (Darkening the Italian Screen II: Interviews with Genre and Exploitation Directors Who Debuted in the 1970s,) who place Venom within early-80s British genre filmmaking and the careers of its eclectic cast.

There are four new interviews. In Fangs for the Memories, editor and second-unit director Michael Bradsell (editor on Gothic, Local Hero, Scum, The Duellists, The Devils, The Music Lovers, Women in Love, The War Game, Culloden) spends almost 1/2 hour on how he became involved with the film. He describes a production that started smoothly before falling behind schedule, which eventually led to Hooper’s exit, along with the difficulties of working with Kinski and the reshoots required once Haggard took over. In A Slithery Story, makeup artist Nick Dudman (Mona Lisa) talks for over 20 minutes about working under his mentor, department head Basil Newall (From Russia with Love.) He remembers the shutdown and the changeover from Hooper to Haggard, and calls doing makeup for Reed and Kinski, with their very different temperaments, a “baptism by fire.” In Mamba Memories, author and critic Kim Newman (The Definitive Guide to Horror Movies) spends almost 25 minutes surveying the careers of the cast and crew and the tradition of snake-on-the-loose cinema. He makes the astute point that the mamba is something of a hero, since it only attacks the villains. Finally, in Pick Your Poison, Allan Bryce of The Dark Side magazine adds 1/4 hour of colorful anecdotes about the Reed–Kinski feud and Hooper’s brief tenure, and reveals that Sean Connery was originally cast. He also shares one or two Oliver Reed stories best heard rather than repeated here.

Rounding out the package are the theatrical trailer, four half-minute TV spots, a newly expanded poster and still gallery running over 10 minutes, and a collectible booklet with an essay by Michael Gingold.

Venom is a lean, nasty little hostage thriller with an improbable marquee - and a gift for anyone who loves watching larger-than-life actors circle each other in tight quarters. The deadly mamba strikes almost exclusively at the guilty, lending an old-fashioned sense of justice beneath the exploitation trappings. Susan George (Straw Dogs, Sudden Terror, Tintorera, Fright, Die Screaming Marianne, Enter the Ninja, The Strange Affair, The Sorcerers, Mandingo, Up the Junction, Jack the Ripper) is the film's secret weapon as Louise, the sly, calculating maid who is both bait and brains of the inside job - and her encounter with the mamba is the film's most skin-crawling set-piece. Oliver Reed (The System, Revolver, The Assassination Bureau, The Curse of the Werewolf, Crossed Swords, The Party's Over, Ten Little Indians, Z.P.G., The Triple Echo, Dante's Inferno, The Brigand of Kandahar, The Devils, Hired to Kill, The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday, These Are the Damned, The Debussy Film, The Scarlet Blade, Women in Love, Tommy, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Sword of Sherwood Forest, The Hunting Party, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Pirates of Blood River, Burnt Offerings, The Brood, Paranoiac, Farewell, My Lovely, Take a Girl Like You) and Klaus Kinski (The Great Silence, Double Face, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Haine, Creature with the Blue Hand, Woyzeck, Cobra Verde, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo, Crawlspace, Pleasure Girls, Bang! Bang! You're Dead!, A Bullet for the General, For a Few Dollars More, The Cats, Grand Slam, Slaughter Hotel, Madame Claude, The Counterfeit Traitor, Count Dracula) famously loathed each other, and that genuine ill will crackles in every exchange between the volatile chauffeur and the contemptuous terrorist. Sterling Hayden (The Killing, The Asphalt Jungle, Naked Alibi, Terror in a Texas Town, Flat Top, 5 Steps to Danger, Denver and Rio Grande, The Outsider, Dr. Strangelove, Crime of Passion, The Long Goodbye) lends a craggy dignity as the grandfather, Nicol Williamson (The Reckoning, The Human Factor, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The Wilby Conspiracy, Excalibur, Black Widow) brings a clipped, chess-player calm to the siege outside, and Sarah Miles (Ryan's Daughter, The Hireling, Hope and Glory, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, The Servant, She Played with Fire, Loving Walter) is the toxicologist pulled into the nightmare. Piers Haggard (Quatermass, The Blood on Satan's Claw) stepped in for Tobe Hooper at short notice and delivered a taut, efficient thriller, beautifully lensed by Gilbert Taylor (The Bedroom Window, Dracula, The Omen, Frenzy, A Day at the Beach, Cul-de-sac, Repulsion, A Hard Day's Night, Dr. Strangelove, Yield to the Night, The Dam Busters, Seven Days to Noon, The Outsider) and scored by Michael Kamen (The Dead Zone, Mona Lisa, Polyester, Road House, Company Business, Event Horizon, Brazil). Blue Underground's 4K UHD is a substantial upgrade - a new 4K restoration from the interpositive with restored grain, re-timed color, deeper contrast, a new Atmos mix, a second commentary and four new interviews. Even the included Blu-ray is a significant improvement over the decade-old release. Certainly recommended to the right crowd.

Gary Tooze