Venom Animated Movie Can Reestablish the Marvel Monster’s Horror Roots

To the average superhero fan, Venom is Eddie Brock’s goofy buddy, a lethal protector who will occasionally munch on a baddie’s brain, but would just as easily enjoy some chocolates. Even to those who read Marvel Comics, Venom is a tortured anti-hero, the symbiotic partner of the genuinely good, if flawed, Eddie. That’s a far cry from the menacing monster who tried to kill Spider-Man in the 1980s.

But if the creators of Final Destination: Bloodlines have their way, Venom could be a scary monster once again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bloodlines directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein will direct an animated Venom film. No cast or writers have been announced yet, so we don’t know for sure what the direction will be. But given the gory glee that Lipovsky and Stein brought to Final Destination, the Venom movie could take a horror direction.

Venom’s horror bonafides are established in 1988’s Amazing Spider-Man #300, by writer David Michelinie and artist Todd McFarlane, the issue in which he first fully appeared. The story opens with Mary Jane cowering in terror at some shadowy figure approaching her. Even though its revealed that the figure is just her husband Peter Parker in a cloth version of his black costume, the pages set the tone for the rest of the story. Venom hunts down Spider-Man and tries to execute him, killing off a civilian in the process.

Even the lead-up to Amazing Spider-Man #300 has a horror tinge. Spider-Man picked up his black costume while off-planet during the original Secret Wars storyline in 1984. As in most adaptations of the Venom storyline, such as Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man 3, the black suit initially brings out the best in Peter, but it eventually starts to corrupt him. However, the comic storylines have more of the suit itself acting like a shadowy wraith, stalking after Peter in the night and pushing away Mary Jane.

After realizing that the suit was a living symbiote, Peter discarded it, and it bonded with Eddie Brock, a disgraced journalist who blames Peter for his problems. Together, they become Venom, initially just a bigger, stronger version of Spider-Man. But eventually, Venom gained a more grotesque appearance, with razor teeth, a tendril-like tongue, and lots of green slime slobber.

However, Venom soon proved incredibly popular and with antiheroes such as Punisher and Ghost Rider all the rage in the 1990s, he launched his own miniseries in 1993. Although that comic established him as a lethal protector who would kill his enemies, Venom also had a more clearly heroic goal. Since then, Venom has only moved farther away from his horror roots, especially as recent stories have made him the Earth’s best defense against the eldritch monster Knull or, in the current series, replaced Eddie Brock with Mary Jane as the monster’s host.

Fun as those stories are, there’s no question that Venom has lost something over the years. If Lipovsky and Stein can bring some of the nastiness they brought to Final Destination, while retaining that movie’s heart and playfulness, Venom could be scary and cool once again.

The Venom animated movie is now in pre-production.