Venus DIE-trap — Venus DIE-trap( DVD)

Venus DIE-trap is a highly campy and extremely low-budget tribute to when monsters invade small-town America sci-fi/ horror. The 2025 film has a limited cast of just four or five folks, with a blatant use of stock footage, bad CGI backdrops, hamming it up acting, and a monster made of painted papier-mache & flaying fake vine leaves. Here from SRS Cinema, those seekers of all things low-budget/ SOV fare is a DVD release of the film, taking in two commentary tracks, and a few more extras.

The film was directed/ written by Newton, North Carolina-based Bobby Canipe Jr. Since 2013, he has had nine other features to his name. These take in documentary Mom n' Pop: The Indie Video Store Boom of the 80s/90s (2022), sci-fi/ horror regarding an alien trying to take over suburbia Woke( 2023), comedy horror Amityville Ripper(2023), and gritty grindhouse killer in a pig mask slasher Pigshit (2025).

The film runs around the horror mark, with a fair chunk of retro drive-in ads mixed in, so you have around fifty minutes of the film/ story itself.  It features two lead characters, twenty-something botanist Sally(Angel Nichole Bradford), and moustached/ crewcut, new to the town, deputy(Rob Browing).

The picture is seemingly meant to be set somewhere around the 50s/ early 60s in a seaside town, though there is little effort to disguise modern elements in the background. We get to meet up with our two leads after reeling text over small-town US main street footage- Sally is talking to her pet Venus flytraps, which are very obvious old stock footage, and our deputy is hanging around a porch, which has an alarm to scare off raccoons- that keeps going off.

Night falls, and a meteorites streak across the sky, with one falling to earth. The two rush to the site where it fell, and guess what, it’s just nearby where Sally’s pet plants are.  As things unfold, the plants grow, start attacking folk, and causing mischief, though we rarely see the giant plants- when we do, they are a cheaply made blend of a red & green painted papier-mache toothy plant head & a clump of fake vines.

The film very much sends up the tropes you’d expect from a 1950s sci-fi film. There’s a local scientist who's left with one of the plants, a plump mayor who tries to deny what's going on, and of course, our lead- Sally looks a spit for Mia Goth in Pearl in her gingham print dress, and our deputy switches between winking/ nodding at stock footage characters & trying to be a hero.

The picture blends sci-fi, with light touches of horror( fake blood/ badly acted deaths) and comedy. The most amusing characters in my mind were the tubby and moustached mayor & his sleek back hair/moustached assistant.

All in all, Venus DIE-trap was an entertaining/lovingly made low-budget tribute to Sci-fi of the 50’s, with a decent hamming it right up cast, and an engaging/ amusing use of stock footage.

 

On the extras side, we get two commentary tracks- I believe both are with director/ writer Bobby Canipe Jr., and I played the first of these. He starts off by saying that the key influences on the film were Tarantula (1955), Them (1954), and Day Of The Triffids (1962)- and he talks about how he wholesale copies scenes from these films in his picture.  He talks about the use of drive-in ads, and relates to one of his memories of going to the drive-in in the 1990s, to a double bill of The Silence of the Lambs and Child’s Play 3.  He discusses the use of both stock footage and low-fi green screen in the film. We find out that, apparently, North Carolina is the only place where Venus flytraps grow naturally.  He talks about both of his leads, whom he’s worked with many times in the past. We find out that when they shot the film, it was one of the warmest days in North Carolina, so he just wore shorts to direct the picture. Later on, he talks about moments of Fly Trap Pov, and how he manipulates the monster itself. He points out the other few actors, and more. All in all, a down-to-earth/interesting enough director's track.

Otherwise, we get two music videos from tracks featured in the film, Drive In Influence (2.36), where Bobby Canipe Jr discusses his influences, and a mocked-up lobby card for the film.

Venus DIE-trap certainly is a loving, camp, and at points lightly amusing tribute to creature feature/ sci-fi films of the 50’s and 60’s. And I’ll certainly be giving  Bobby Canipe Jr. other films a look- if you want to support low-budget indie fare, then this is well worth picking up.