VENUS DROWNING – Do you like the films of Andrew Parkinson? Maybe you've seen 'I, Zombie', or 'Dead Creatures', both of which wander into strange territory where the social realism of Mike Leigh meets genre nastiness. They're not everyone's cup of tea, but for me they make for wonderfully downbeat retorts to the usual low budget horror fodder, marked as it often is by a reliance on the overt and the obvious... not every cannibal zombie flick would bother to tackle the ennui of some depressed but ravenous-for-human-flesh chicks living on a council estate (a la 'Dead Creatures'). 'Venus Drowning', made in 2006 but only just recently released on DVD, adds to this cannon of down-at-heel but surreal Brit bleakness. It's about a woman who, following an unsuccessful suicide attempt, relocates to the seaside town where she grew up, where she spends quite a lot of time soul searching and going on long, introspective walks by the sea. During one such meander, she finds an beached organism which looks weirdly like a foetus. Back home, the 'foetus' is shown to have odd properties ie exudes a seemingly orgasm – inducing slime. Her mate, a cabbie and some tentacles are all soon involved in a scenario where the maternal meets the ickily erotic (don't reach for the hair shirt just yet, it's all very subdued). Truthfully, I didn't dig 'Venus Drowning' as much as his previous two flicks, although conceptually it notches up the freakiness. I can see why it's been touted as 'The Brood meets Liquid Sky', although both of these latter films are more beguiling, more mysterious. That's not to say that 'Venus Drowning' doesn't deliver on many levels. It's a curiosity for sure, and in my mind represents the point where the pilot for a new Channel 4 soap based on tragic young people morphs Frank Henenlotter's 'Brain Damage' into its own maudlin contours. I guess for me it could've done with being a bit more cryptic and aloof. It's not exactly blunt or obvious, but there is a flatness. As I write this, I feel I'm being a bit pernickety. It's still more interesting and imaginative than most of what passes for horror product, whether indie or mainstream. I wanted to watch it again after it finished, and I don't really feel that way about many of the films I see. It's definitely worth catching, as are 'I, Zombie' and 'Dead Creatures', films by a lo-fi Brit auteur.
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