[youtube width=”560″ height=”315″ video_id=”7YDYL6oECjU”]
Chalk this up to one of the coolest short films you’ll ever see as filmmaker Adi Shankar and True Blood star Ryan Kwanten put together a “documentary” about popular Spider-Man villain Venom and his alter ego Eddie Brock.
For those unfortunate souls that saw Spider-Man 3 in 2007, actor Topher Grace attempted to play the character, but the film ended up with awful results in terms of how Venom was portrayed and used in the movie.
In a much grittier and more realistic version titled “Truth in Journalism”, Shankar uses a documentary film crew that follows Brock around New York City as he investigates murders while acting creepier and creepier each step of the way.
The real back story of Eddie Brock is as follows—he is a reporter at the Daily Bugle, the same paper that employs Peter Parker and obviously follows the exploits of Spider-Man. The entire city is on the hunt for a serial killer called Sin-Eater, and Brock is under pressure from his publisher to find out the identity of the murderer.
So crumbling to find the real killer, Brock accepts the confession of a man named Emil Gregg, who claims to be Sin-Eater. As it turns out, Gregg is a serial confessor, who does this only to gain attention and while the fake story is being revealed, Spider-Man captures the real Sin-Eater thus exposing Brock’s story as false.
He is disgraced and fired from the paper, and forced to work for tabloids while constantly seething with rage about how Spider-Man found the real killer and stole his story. All of this is happening while Spider-Man is battling with a new all black suit he was fashioned with during his visit to an alien planet during the Secret Wars mini-series.
As it turns out this suit is actually a living, alien symbiote trying to merge with Peter Parker. Luckily before the alien can take over, Peter is able to break free using sounds from church bells to rid himself of the costume. Later that same night, Brock visits the church to pray and the alien feels his presence and bonds with him instead.
Without the power and strength that was instilled in Spider-Man, Brock is unable to fight off the alien and he bonds with it permanently and becomes the psychotic killing machine known as Venom.
The film portrays Brock (Kwanten) as a reporter being followed around town by the film crew, and as the short movie plays out all of these elements from the character’s backstory are explained in brief easter eggs throughout.
The final few minutes are also chilling as Venom appears, and makes you wish this is how the producers in Spider-Man 3 had used this infamous villain. Also make sure to stay tuned for the credits where another famous Marvel villain takes aim for a brief appearance.
