Venus

Directed by Jaume Balagueró, Venus details the spooky, sinister happenings within a rundown apartment building that holds plenty of mysterious (and otherworldly) secrets. Filmmaker Balagueró, armed with his and Fernando Navarro’s screenplay, kicks the proceedings off with a thoroughly ominous text crawl that seems to promise a moody, creepy thriller, which does ensure that the deliberate, uninvolving narrative that follows can’t help but come off as a tremendous disappointment – as Balagueró suffuses the proceedings with tedious happenings and hopelessly uninvolving subplots. (This is especially true of the far-from-engrossing exploits of a go-go dancer who steals a cache of drugs from her shady employers.) It’s clear, as well, that the arms-length atmosphere is perpetuated by a midsection that contains few, if any, compelling or interesting moments, which does ensure, as a result, that the decidedly bonkers occurrences contained within Venus’ third act are hardly able to pack the engrossing, exciting punch Balagueró has obviously intended – which ultimately does cement the picture’s place as a palpable misfire that never remotely lives up to the potential of its apocalyptic setup.

*1/2 out of ****