Venom Short Film: ‘Truth in Journalism’ Tells a Supervillain Tale as a Faux Documentary

Technically, 'Truth in Journalism' is a fan film, but it's the kind of fan film that happens when everyone involved is a professional filmmaker with the goal of turning an entire genre upside down. This is a 16-minute short film disguised as a Belgian-made documentary shot in the '80s ... that just so happens to be about the iconic Spider-Man villain known as Venom. Yeah, it's really cool.

Directed by on-the-rise filmmaker Joe Lynch and produced by Adi Shankhar (whose credits include 'The Grey' and 'Killing Them Softly'), the black-and-white film follows a journalist named "Eddie B.", played by 'True Blood' actor Ryan Kwanten, as he shows a documentary crew his day-to-day life as an investigative journalist in New York City.

Spider-Man fans will already have a solid idea of where all of this is going (as will people who remember Sam Raimi's take on the character in 'Spider-Man 3'), but you've never seen it like this. Heck, you've never seen a superhero story like this. It's pretty much a remake of 'Man Bites Dog' but in the Marvel universe. It really is something else.

Although 'Chronicle' director Josh Trank is currently attached to make a 'Venom' movie (which may tie into the world of 'The Amazing Spider-Man'), we have a hard time believing that it could be as strange, offbeat and surprising as this. The sad thing about comic book movies is that they're so expensive that directors can't take risks. Thankfully, projects like this can occasionally show up and remind us that there are still plenty of unique ways to tackle this material.