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Is ‘Life’ a Prequel to Sony’s ‘Spider-Man’ Spinoff, ‘Venom’?!

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Is Sony’s Columbia Pictures puling one of the biggest coups in the history of cinema?

I just unloaded all of my webbing at this new fan theory that’s too good to be true, yet is surprisingly believable.

Is Life, in theaters March 24th, a prequel to the long gestured Spider-Man spinoff, Venom?!

The first piece of evidence is pretty simple; all three films/franchises are released through Columbia Pictures, not just Sony.

The second clue is that just yesterday, out of the blue, Venom was given an official release date of October 5, 2018, meaning there must be secret progress behind closed doors in order to get production underway for that targeted date.

Another bit of information is that Sony contacted me directly wanting it known that Alex Kurtzman (The Mummy) was no longer attached to direct Venom.

Here’s where we start getting into the Spider-Man tie-in…

The trailer for Life carries the exact same shot from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. The villain in the 2007 sequel? Eddie Brock (Venom), played by Topher Grace!


Spider-Man 3


Life


Yes, we’ve double checked and confirmed this is a real thing. Nearly the same footage from a 2007 movie is in a trailer for the 2017 Life. What does it mean? Could Life truly be a Venom origin story? Why not? Shared universes are all the rage now, and what a cool way to re-introduce the character, setting up a quasi-remake for next year.

Here’s where the conspiracy really gains some footing…

FilmSchoolRejects recaps it perfectly: “See, in the comics and the movie, Venom isn’t a humanoid, it’s an alien symbiote that attaches itself to a humanoid and takes them over. In the comics, the symbiote came home with Peter from the Secret Wars, and in Raimi’s film it falls to Earth on a meteor. In both cases it attaches first to Peter, turning his classic red-and-blue suit black and making him do terrible, terrible things like dance, then to Eddie Brock, who becomes Venom. Looking back on the Life trailer, said goo from Mars does appear to be some kind of adhesive symbiote capable of starting small and spreading man-sized, and the inclusion of a single crowd shot — on Earth — would seem to indicate our crew isn’t successful in destroying it.”

The site also notes that what really gives this theory legs are Reese and Wernick, the writers, who do have Marvel connections via ­Deadpool, and Sony, the studio behind Spider-Man 3, Life, and Venom.

With studio’s pulling the rug out from under fans being all the rage – The Woods, Split, Cloverfield – it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this fan theory ended up being true. The writers could have easily watched an early cut of Life and suggested squeezing a connection into the film to tie-it into the franchise. But who knows? We’re probably all just having a serious case of wishful thinking.

Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 was a huge misstep, mostly because it was alleged that he was forced into including the popular character into the storyline. Raimi has gone on record that he isn’t a fan of Venom nor does he understand the character’s motivations. To put it simply, it’s a story about rejection, which Eddie Brock and the alien symbiote share in common. Their shared hatred of Peter Parker’s success fuels their hate and fuses them into one. It’ll be interesting to see how Sony plans on telling a solo Venom story if he’s the film’s protagonist. Deadpool and Logan are the best examples of the ultimate anti-hero, but what would drive a Venom story? Carnage? Whether Life is a prequel or not, I can’t wait to put Spider-Man 3′s awful effects in the rearview mirror along with other disasters like Spawn.

What do you guys think?!

Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

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[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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