Venus

TIFF 2022: Venus Review

Venus begins on the dancefloor of a sketchy Madrid nightclub. We meet a young dancer named Lucía (Ester Expósito) as she fights her way out of the club with a stolen bag of drugs.

With a crew of sociopathic gangsters hot on her trail, she hides at her sister Rocío’s place (Ángela Cremonte) in the rundown Venus apartment complex. However, staying at the Venus is like going from the frying pan to the fire.

An evil force stirs within the apartment’s walls. And in two days time, an anomalous celestial event will unleash it. Lucía finds herself caught between a rock and a hard place: leave Venus and get hunted by gangsters or keep hiding and fight an evil presence.

Director Jaume Balagueró knows how to create Midnight Madness treasures. His film 2007 cult classic Rec cult raised the bar in the found footage genre.

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Venus sees Balagueró plunge viewers into the world of cosmic horror. He combines Hereditary’s eerie mysticism with The Void’s style of cosmic terror. He even throws seedy crime movie elements into the mix.

Balagueró crafts an intriguing cinematic world steeped in magic, mysticism, and gangland violence. One scene sees a contract killer visit a witch to magically track someone down. It’s a fun addition to the story that calls back to the supernatural noir style of Constantine.

Venus is a heart-stopping action-horror flick with a crime movie’s grit. It may not reach Rec’s highs, but it’s another bloodcurdling addition to Balagueró’s filmography.

Venus screened as a part of TIFF 2022, which ran from September 8 to 18. Head here for more from the festival.



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