WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Venom (1981) 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:06.720 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:09.560 This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.520 today we're featuring an older episode of Weird House Cinema. 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:16.080 This one originally published November twelfth, twenty twenty one, and 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.919 this is the movie Venom, starring Oliver Reed klaus Kinski. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.120 A bunch of snakes this is in this. It's got 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:29.120 a fun British cast, and it's snakes in an apartment 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.720 building or a singular snake in an apartment building. 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:33.600 Nicol Williamson is also in this. 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:34.520 That's right. 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:36.360 Yes, it's got a real fun cast for sure. 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:45.720 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.560 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.120 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it is the Serpentine Hour 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.800 here on Weird House Cinema. Because today Rob am I 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.040 right that this is our first snake movie. 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.440 It is. I mean, we've certainly had some snakes and 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.160 even killer snakes pop up in some of our Florida 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.959 movies that we did, including Zat and Frogs, but Venom 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.360 is going to be our first true snake movie. 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.320 Now, this movie is called Venom. But no, it's not 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.240 that Venom. No, it's not that other one either. It's 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.720 this is Venom nineteen eighty one, the original Venom. 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:29.720 Or well, one of the original venoms. I noticed that 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.400 there are multiple films with the title Venom, so I'm 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.760 not sure if this one is the true originator, but 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:37.760 it's the one that we're talking about here today. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.679 Man, I love a good snake romp. You know, a 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.800 snake movie. Really it just gets you by the gut sometimes. 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:50.320 So I love, as we've discussed before, the campy supernatural 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.520 pleasures of the Layer of the White Worm to even 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:57.120 what I would argue is maybe the best creature feature 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.800 of all time, the nineteen ninety seven Amazon snake hunt 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:05.240 movie Anaconda, in which the cardinal rule of great snake 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:07.960 movies is observed. And this is what I would argue. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:12.960 The rule is any creature movie featuring an unusually large 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:18.200 or unusually deadly reptile must also contain at least one 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.800 human actor who is more reptilian than the creature itself. Now, 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.480 in the case of Anaconda, you've got your giant cgi reptile, 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.760 but it is being constantly upstaged by John Voight, delivering 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.000 one of the most bizarre performances I have ever seen 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.280 in any movie. You know, you just look at him. 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.919 You can tell his blood is room temperature. When he 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:44.440 blinks his eyes they go horizontal, and his accent is 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.720 just radioactive weirdness. He sounds like he's trying to sort 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:53.440 of be Peter Lorie doing a like Spanish Count Dracula 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.880 kind of thing, but also as a ruthless jungle poacher 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.880 with a ponytail. So that movie definitely here's to the rule. 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.840 But I think today's pick also observes the rule. 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:08.200 That's right. Venom is a very interesting film in a 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:13.239 large part because it features not one, but two notoriously 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:20.520 difficult actors, Oliver Reid and Kloss Kinski. And there's actually 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:25.120 another reportedly difficult actor in this as well, so you 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.800 can really up that to three. But it's especially evident 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.280 with Reid and Kinski based on some of the stories 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:32.760 and the fact that they share a lot of screen 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.120 time in this film, so you can imagine if they 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.880 were constantly shouting at each other and almost coming to blows, 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.000 it would it would have been a particularly terrible working 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:44.560 environment for everyone on the picture. 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.160 You can feel the bad vibes through the screen. 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.920 Yes, Now, I mean luckily they're both playing villains, and 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.520 the characters are also supposed to somewhat hate each other, 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.200 so on the screen, you know, putting a setting aside 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.080 anything we know about the making of and these actors themselves, 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.320 you know, it ends up working. But yeah, both Kinsky 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.920 and Reed were kind of larger than life figures. Both 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.800 were noted hedonists in their own ways, and they were 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.680 both highly talented actors whose careers were damaged by their 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.920 difficult behavior. So I think it's fair to say that, 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:18.920 you know, at the very least, they were both very 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:20.080 problematic figures. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:22.720 Well, if you're talking about their personal lives, I think, 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.279 especially in the case of Kinsky, that's sort of an understatement. 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.760 Oh yes, yeah, I feel like every time I learned 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.520 something new about Kinski, I regret it. Now, you know, 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.039 we're not going to focus that guess too much on 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.680 their personal lives, but you know, I admit that I 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.440 don't necessarily have the stomach for too much of that 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.200 sort of thing. But you know, some argue that Reed 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:42.800 sort of played up this hell raiser image for the press, 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.040 though there seems no denying his alcoholism and his also 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:52.160 kind of like brute, macho demeanor. Kinsky, on the other hand, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.200 was prone to outbursts and tantrums, it seems, and seems 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:01.480 to have suffered from mental illness. He also was apparently 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.080 just reviled by many people who had to work with him, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.360 and I think Werner Herzog kind of stands apart as 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:09.560 really the only filmmaker to have been able to work 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:13.000 with him multiple times for a total of five different films. 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.640 It's interesting to me though, that Kinski played a vampire 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:21.560 in two different Nosferato films and Reed played a werewolf 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:26.400 in one Hammer film. So you know, to a large extent, 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.279 we have vampires versus werewolves in this movie, and behind 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.880 the scenes on this movie, the vampire and the werewolf 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.080 really do seem like monstrous reflections of the individual energies 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:39.320 of these two actors. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.400 Okay, so we know we're dealing with Klaus Kinski and 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.719 Oliver Reed both in a snake movie. But the weird 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.280 thing is it's not just a snake movie. Really. What 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:55.360 this is is a genre hybrid. This is a realistic 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.840 crime thriller plus snake. 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.760 Yes, another elevator pitch on at give it is a 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.080 deadly game of cat and mouse, but mostly snake. 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:05.760 Yeah. 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.839 Or home alone but with snake. 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.240 All good ways of summing it up. Another way you 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.960 could sum it up is bad at crime, good at 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:14.800 dying by snake. 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.919 Yeah. The bad at crime note is good. And this 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:23.000 is one of those where those films where the criminal 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.599 enterprise is perhaps not entirely well thought out and or 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:32.240 bad and or mistakes are made that just lead to catastrophe. 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.400 So it's, you know, in a way, it's more in 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.479 sort of the Fargo realm of crime cinema, Like these 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:43.800 are guys who really screw up and make mistakes that 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:45.600 are just catastrophic for their venture. 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.960 I also want to note that in terms of boo mechanics, 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.599 I think there are basically two kinds of snake movies. 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.200 So you could have like a big snake movie and 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:00.040 a stealth snake movie. So big snake movies would be 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.760 more like anaconda. They focus on the scale of snake 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.039 in order to intimidate, and this is either by having 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.119 a single very large snake or by having a large 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:14.440 quantity of regular sized snakes. But your stealth snake movies 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.520 have a snake instead that is regular sized, maybe especially deadly, 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.440 but it hides in places you don't expect and pops 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.600 out at you. And this is a film in the 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.160 latter camp. This is a stealth snake movie. This is 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.480 a movie about opening up the liquor cabinet and oops, 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.640 there's a black mamba and it bits you on the face. 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.080 Though it would be hilarious to try to imagine doing 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.480 the same premises this movie like a realistic crime thriller 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.720 involving a kidnapping plot plus snake with like a giant 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:45.400 snake or a million snakes. 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.600 Yeah, I mean, I guess you could do a million snakes. 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.920 It could be like the a million snakes are set 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.400 loose in the house. I mean, isn't snakes on a 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.600 plane essentially that It's like there's something else going on, right, 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:00.440 It's not just snakes on the plane and they're like 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.560 a hostage scenario or something. 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.360 Can I confess something. I've never seen all of Snakes 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.400 on a Plane. I started watching it and never finished it. 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.960 I have to assume there's something else going on beside snakes. 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:17.360 So yeah, I think there is a perfunctory crime element, 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.280 like somebody it's like a witness in a mob case 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.040 or something is being transported on a plane. But I 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.600 would say snakes on a plane goes big snake because 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.200 the issue is there are many snakes on the plane. 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.160 This film, with the single snake threat, it reminds me 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.720 a lot of the Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Adventure of 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.439 the Speckled Band, which concerns like a very deadly, venomous 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.640 snake that is responsible for a death. And I wouldn't 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:46.800 be surprised if that was ultimately one of the inspirations 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:48.319 on this story. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.200 Well, I think it's got a lot of actors who 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.840 were in Sherlock Holmes movies and TV series in Britain. 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.280 Right, Yeah, Yeah, we have more than more than one 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.360 Sherlock Holmes connection here for sure. Well let's go ahead 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:00.480 and jump right into the trailer. 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:09.040 Here venom, the kidnap that became a murder, that became 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:16.000 a siege, that became a death trap. Venom. 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.280 The fear explodes, trapping their hostages and kidnappers in its grip. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.920 The panic spreads, sending an entire police force into action. 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.160 But this is a terror unlike anything anyone has ever faced. 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:37.200 And when it uncoils to strike, your blood will run cold. Venom. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.960 Whatever you feel you will fear. 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:49.160 Venom. 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:54.280 Dude, this is classic creature feature narration trailer, narration. I 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.640 absolutely love it. What does he say, venom, the kidnap 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.920 that became a murder, that became a sea, that became 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.440 a death trap. Venom. 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:06.680 Yeah. They do a really good job of selling this 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:07.720 movie in that trailer. 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.800 Uh huh. And he also says this line. I kept 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.280 thinking about it. I was like, what does it mean? 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:17.120 He says, whatever you feel you will fear. Does that 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.800 mean that once you start thinking about snakes, Like anytime 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.679 something touches your body, I don't know, you brush against 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.600 the doorframe as you're walking through it, or I don't know, 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.400 like a leaf falls on your shoulder, you're always gonna 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:31.160 think it's a snake. 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.239 I guess. So, if we're being generous, I guess that's 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.120 maybe what the ad copy here is trying to say. 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.360 What else would it mean? That's a weird line. 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.120 Whatever you feel you will fear. I don't know, it 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:48.240 doesn't really make much sense in the context of the film. 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:49.760 I feel happy. 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:55.000 Oh no, maybe it was the director of the actors. 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.200 They just said like they're like, well, what's my character, 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.280 what's my motivation? And the director's just I don't know, 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.760 whatever you feel you'll fear, And they're like, okay, because 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.319 it does seem like, for the most part, a lot 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.920 of these actors were just kind of turned loose to 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.320 just do their thing with the character, and there's not 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.080 really necessarily a great sense of who the underlying character 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:15.800 is supposed to be. 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.760 Do you remember how did you come across this movie? 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:20.520 What's the origin story here? 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.960 I have a couple of different blu rays of just 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.959 trailers from like the seventies and eighties, and I was 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.040 watching a compilation and this one popped up and I 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.439 was like, oh, now this looks interesting. 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.040 I suspected that because this is very much one where 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.720 if you see the trailer, you're like, yep, okay, gotta 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:40.400 see that one. 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.199 Well, let's jump right in and talk about the various 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.240 humans and the snakes involved in this film. So the 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:53.559 director is Peers Haggard born nineteen thirty nine. Interestingly enough, 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.360 Toby Hooper was going to direct this picture originally, and 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.360 I think may have been working on it a little bit, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.200 but then he had to bow out for some reason. 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.680 And I think they're varying accounts as to why, and 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.360 then enters Haggard here, who had previously directed the nineteen 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.520 seventy one British horror film The Blood on Satan's Claw, 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:17.520 A Divorce, The Quartermass Conclusion, also the Peter Sellers comedy 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.000 The fiendish plot of Doctor Fu Manchu, which everyone seemed 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.640 to hate in nineteen eighty and did still very much 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.840 hated today, seemingly with good reason. And he also directed 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.040 various TV episodes. He went on to do more TV 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:36.280 and a potentially interesting looking sci fi film, a TV 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.960 film titled The Life Force Experiment in nineteen ninety four. 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:43.800 Another interesting thing about him is he was dialogue assistant 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.080 on the nineteen sixty six film blow Up. 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.280 So he did the Life Force Experiment and he was 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.079 He came in to direct a movie that Toby Hooper 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.240 was going to direct, and Toby Hooper directed Life Force. 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.280 Right. I don't know that there's any connection between Life 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.920 Force and the Life Force Experiment, but certainly the names 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.760 are similar. Now, this is an adaptation of a novel, 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.520 it's worth stressing. The original novel, Venom, was written by 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.640 Alan Scholfield, who lived nineteen thirty one through twenty seventeen, 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.720 a South African author who I think lived most of it, 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:21.319 may have lived most of his life in England. I 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.200 think it was like London based or something. But this 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.560 book came out in nineteen seventy seven and it still 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.840 seems to be in print. You can go obtain this 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.760 book and read it. I've never read any of his novels, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.439 but he was quite prolific. He also wrote a nineteen 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:41.000 eighty one horror novel called Cat's Eyes under the name 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.880 Lee Jordan, and it seems like he was seems like 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:47.400 he was reasonably well regarded and often worked African history 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.920 and culture into his works. Apparently best known for his 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:56.120 McCrae and Silver novels, which were London based detective books. Now, 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:00.160 the screenplay was written by Robert Carrington born nineteen twenty eight, 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.400 who wrote such films as Wait Until Dark and Fear 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:05.560 Is the Key, and he was active in the sixties, 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.560 seventies and eighties. All right, let's move on to the actors. 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:17.360 So our reptilian humanoid in this film is, of course Kloskinski, 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.800 who lived nineteen twenty six through nineteen ninety one. He 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:22.160 plays the character Jack. 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.680 Mel So this is one of our main trio of criminals. 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:32.280 Yes, I guess he's kind of the mastermind. He's supposed 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.360 to be. I think we mentioned at one point that 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.840 he's a member of the German Underworld. He's like a 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.640 German Underworld figure, and he has of course flown in 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:47.640 to London to mastermind the sort of I'm not sure 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.160 if he's the Mastermind or not, but anyway, he's going 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:54.120 to be one of the main operatives in this kidnapping plot. Yeah. 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.120 I think he's played as the Mastermind because there are 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.160 a lot of scenes of him pointing a gun at 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.080 Oliver Reed and being like, remember, you know you don't 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:02.600 drink whiskey until I tell you. 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:07.800 To, all right. So. Kinsky, of course a German born actor, 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.920 perhaps best remembered today for his smoldering presence in some 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.400 of Werner Herzog's best known works, such as Geary, The 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:19.840 Wrath of God was Zek, Nosferatu, the Vampire, Fitzgeraldo and 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.360 Cobra Verde. He also had a small but memorable role 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:28.280 in Doctor Shivago in nineteen sixty five, and accounts of 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:30.240 anyone who had to work with Kinsky they tend to 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.080 revolve around two different things. His raw talent, you know 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:38.640 that undeniably like there's something electric in a klos Kinsky performance, 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.520 but also intense difficulty and displeasure of working with him. 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:47.520 It seems to be a common theme. Herzog managed it, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:52.240 but also had a just legendarily explosive relationship with Kinski, 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.480 and at times from you know, stuff I've watched, you know, 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:58.200 documentaries and so forth, it seems like he was able 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:03.000 to get his the best stuff out of Kinski by 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.320 sort of manipulating him, like, for instance, wearing him out 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:09.760 with takes. In the case of a Gira like, Kinsky 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.920 has this monologue at the end of it, and Kinsky 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.440 thought he needed to rage through it, and Herzog reportedly 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.160 just had him do it over and over again until 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:22.080 he was just worn out and could only deliver it 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:27.640 at the energy that Herzog wanted. So, you know, I 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:32.280 thought that was an insightful story about working with Kinski. 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:34.360 It seems like he was raging a lot. 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:39.680 Yes, yes, certainly behind the scenes. So Kinsky did a 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.560 number of spaghetti westerns as well, including for a few 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.240 dollars more, as well as various European genre films. He 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.480 played a vampire in Herzog's nineteen seventy nine nos Faratu film, 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.520 as well as the nineteen eighty eight film Vampire in Venice. 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.040 This was supposed to, I think be a sequel to 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:01.600 Nosfaratu in some respects, but kinskyly refused to wear any 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.520 vampire makeup for it, and so he doesn't look like 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:08.000 Nosfatu in it per se. After a career of butting 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.840 heads with various directors, he finally directed himself in nineteen 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.359 eighty nine's Paganini, which he also wrote, and this was 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:21.200 his final film. Now a couple of interesting facts. Allegedly, 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.600 Kinsky turned down the role of Major Tat and Raiders 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.000 of the Lost Arc because he hated the script, and 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.160 Venom is the picture he did instead. 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:32.760 Oh, both snake centric movies. 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.080 Yeah yeah, And of course Ronald Lacey wound up doing 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.399 the character of Major Tots, which I think he's so 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:41.280 great in it. This is the best thing that could 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:45.080 have happened. As for Kinsky's performance in Venom, here, I'd 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.080 say what we see on the screen is very good. 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:52.080 He's menacing, he exudes evil very much, plays to his strengths. 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:54.160 Though there is a scene where he has to fight 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.160 a rubber snake, and let's be honest, that's a tall 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:58.280 order for any actor. 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.879 I think his snake wrestled scene is a highlight of 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.040 the film, especially because it turns into a gunfight with 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:05.520 a snake. 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.840 Yes, yeah, a lot happy. Yeah, it's a great climax. 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.480 You just wouldn't think that if a snake is wrapping 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.960 around you and you're trying to fight it off, the 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.080 solution you would come to is trying to shoot the 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:19.640 snake in the head with a pistol. 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:25.120 Right. Yeah, it's a wonderful scene, though I think Herzog 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.520 could have gotten a better, better take out of him. 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:29.960 He just like worn him down until he got the 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:30.639 right energy. 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:35.840 Okay, So Kinsky is playing our lead reptilian criminal in this, 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.760 but then we've also got a more brutal criminal. 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.960 Right that is Dave, the chauffeur, played by Oliver Reed. 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.439 Oliver Reed lived nineteen thirty eight through nineteen ninety nine, 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:51.040 English actor with piercing eyes. Really his as far as 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:55.080 like eyes first acting goes, Reed was a master of this, 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.000 you know, just setting there smoldering and looking at you 0:18:58.080 --> 0:18:59.400 with murder eyes. Oh. 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:01.800 He uses the murderized in this film. Part of The 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.760 problem though, is like there's really not any surprise so 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:09.480 as the plot is revealed, because we first see Oliver Reed, 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.800 I don't know, thirty seconds into the film, just acting 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.480 in his capacity as a chauffeur, and he already looks 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.040 like he is not just getting ready to do murders, 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.239 but has already done them. He looks like he just 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.800 came back in a hurry from doing murders. 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.800 Yes. Absolutely, he always had a knack for playing brute, 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:32.960 macho characters, and of course he increasingly earned a reputation 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.160 for hell raising, drinking, and being difficult to work with. 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.160 He had his first big leading role in the hammer 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:43.760 film The Curse of the Werewolf from Terrence Fisher, came 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.400 out in nineteen sixty one, and he landed some huge 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:48.879 roles in such films as nineteen sixty eight's Oliver, in 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:52.240 which he plays the villain Bill Sikes. He played Athos 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.159 in Three Musketeers in seventy three and its sequel in 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.720 seventy four, and he continued to do a lot of 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.720 villain roles and roles in horror film. He worked with 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.679 Ken Russell several times, including Women in Love and of 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:08.760 course The Devils in which he really delivers a memorable performance. 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.040 He played the god Vulcan and Terry Gilliams The Adventures 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.719 of Baron Muchausen in eighty eight. Other notable roles, at 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.240 least to me, include Disney's Condor Man in nineteen eighty one, 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.080 in which he plays this the villain in this ridiculous 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:28.320 kind of superhero James Bond kind of film, he plays 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.560 the I guess he's the hero and David Cronenberg's The Brood. 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:33.639 No, no, he is not the hero. 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.160 He's not the hero. Oh no, I guess I've forgotten 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.240 most of that film. He's the villain. He's the manipulating 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:41.520 psychiatrist sort of, yeah, psychologist. 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.520 He plays an unorthodox psychiatrist who has like a retreat 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.879 where he leads people through these strange exercises and gets 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:55.080 them to to sort of like turn their their psychic 0:20:55.160 --> 0:21:01.320 pain and trauma into like physical external manifestations like I 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.639 don't know. He leads people through these exercises where like 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.479 their pain is turned into in the case of one character, 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.800 like a physical tumor, but in the case of other 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.359 characters like like literal like little like beings or monsters 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.600 that run around the Brude is a gross movie. Be forewarned. 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:19.240 If you're gonna if you're gonna venture there. 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.080 Yeah, Samantha Egger, isn't that and I have to I 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:24.040 have to look it up. Let's see what Oliver Reid's 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:29.600 character's name. What was this weird Kronenbergian character, doctor Hal Raglin. Yeah, 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:32.600 not that weird as far as cronenberg names go. 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:35.719 Yeah, my memory is just that he's like a weird, 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.479 sort of unethical, unorthodox psychiatrist who's doing a combination of 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:44.600 something like you know, like scientology auditing at the alongside, 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:46.359 like creating tulpas and stuff. 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.120 Mm hmm, okay, yeah, it's been been a while since 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:49.720 I've seen that one. 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:50.199 Oh. 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.359 We should also mention Oliver Reid was, of course in 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:55.240 Ridley Scott's Gladiator in two thousand and This was his 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.720 final film. He died during the filming of it in Malta. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:02.159 I believe. Now here's a fun fact. Venom is not 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.359 the only Oliver Reed snake movie. He also appeared in 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:10.080 nineteen eighty three Spasms alongside Peter Fonda. And this one, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.080 Joe is a giant snake movie. 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:14.439 Okay, big snake instead of Stealth snake. 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:19.720 Yeah, so you can look up various stories about the 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:23.360 production of Venom. Basically, yeah, Reid and Kinsky famously did 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.600 not get along on the film, reportedly hated each other, 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:32.520 and Read allegedly kept intentionally setting Kinsky off, which sounds 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:35.199 absolutely dreadful. You know, you already have Kinsky, who is 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:39.280 you know, has a reputation for being Satan, Yes, Satan, 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.639 and you have and then you have Oliver Reed provoking 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.480 Satan and like pranking Satan and you know, just to 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:48.760 get a ryle out of him. So yeah, this sounds 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.320