Jon Voight and Jennifer Lopez gave the world some scares a few years back with their effects effort titled Anaconda. But big snakes don’t make movies. Hitchcockian homages in combination with a deadly black mamba snake can make for some simpler attempts at entertainment. That’s what we have in Venom.

When young Philip gets a pet snake as a present from his uncle, no-one would have expected him to accidentally pick up the wrong snake and receive a deadly black mamba as opposed to a harmless house snake. Then throw in a bunch of kidnappers who have taken Philip and his family hostage in their own home. The stakes are turned when the kidnappers begin disappearing one by one as the snake kills off anyone that comes across its path. The infamous snake-up-the-trouser-leg scene will bring back memories for folks who don’t remember the movie as a whole.

Oliver Reed holds the record for the most number of times anyone has said the phrase “little bastard� in a film. Almost every second word to come out of his mouth in this effort has the over-the-top Reed letting loose with expletives too, about and in the presence of the little bastard.

Remarkably, the image here is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is anamorphically enhanced. The picture is a nice clean image indeed, only suffering from minor film artefacts every so often. Sharpness is a little lacking, even with the anamorphic enhancement and the image comes across a little soft and lacking in detail. Surprisingly, black levels are pretty decent, with enough shadow detail to give the image a certain depth otherwise not afforded to movies of this age. One aspect of the print that is detrimental is that contrast in the brighter areas of the image causes some blooming, with a loss of detail in the bright whites. Flesh tones are decent enough with colour saturation seemingly accurate overall.

The two channel stereo mix is of decent enough quality, but lacks any real fidelity. The dialogue levels are adequate, albeit a little muffled, with the musical score never overpowering the movie at all. There are some instances of harshness in the mix, but this can be attributed to the age of the print rather than the Dolby Digital mix. Extras are non-existent and the menu system is barely workable.

The image transfer alone is enough to keep fans of this classic happy.