The newest trailer for Venom: Let There Be Carnage shows the sequel should favor dark comedy over self-serious horror, less Stranger Things and more Men in Black. While both trailers embrace the body horror inherent in the alien symbiote aesthetic, the second trailer seems to take itself extremely seriously, striking a much darker tone than the more comedic bent of the first teaser. If this reflects the general tone of the film, it will arguably be a mistake. While a certain amount of grimness is to be expected from a Venom solo movie, audiences responded well to the humorous beats in the original film.
It is possible that the tone for Venom 2 is being set by the success of other projects. For example, the Netflix original series Stranger Things has been a reliable hit with a consistently dark tone. Despite its surprising success, the first Venom movie didn't quite know what movie it wanted to be, seesawing back and forth between wacky comedy and dark body horror; arguably, it was the comedic elements that made Venom better. In fact, a recurring criticism of the first movie was that it was at its best when leaning into the zany vibe and it should have embraced that more fully. Venom 2 may continue the mistake of trying to force a serious tone on the production, but will hopefully look to other projects that have successfully managed to blend humor with underlying horror-tinged themes.
One such movie is 1997's Men in Black. Parallels between Men in Black and the Venom films are easy to spot, and lend themselves to exploitation, especially since Sony Pictures holds the rights to both properties. While the Venom films are more directly violent, there was no shortage of alien gore in the Men in Black films - or, for that matter, aliens having to be dissuaded from eating humans. Venom and Eddie Brock certainly fit the role of the antihero more immediately than the Men in Black. Taken at face value, however, an unregulated group erasing the memories of people in service of maintaining the secret of aliens on Earth are antiheroes.
It's not impossible to imagine a version of Venom embracing comedy and more closely resembling Men in Black in tone. Despite their surface differences, the two movies share a few plot points and story elements. Since Let There Be Carnage also involves fighting off alien symbiotes, embracing similar comedic beats would fit the franchise well as a little levity will go a long way. Without a sense of humor, Men in Black would have been a fairly formulaic sci-fi action film, and could readily have been forgotten. A similar banter between the leads - a variation on the "buddy cop" trope - and pointing out the absurdity of the plot's situations could work just as well to make Venom 2 a bigger hit than the first movie.
So far, with only a tiny bit of Venom 2 being shown in the trailers, it's premature to guess which aesthetic - too serious, darkly humorous, or some attempt at blending the two - the sequel will adopt. The first trailer for Let There Be Carnage showed an awareness of both the criticisms and high notes for audiences in the first film. It is very possible that the promotional materials released so far are an attempt to intrigue an even larger audience, or that the studio listened to feedback around the first trailer and adjusted accordingly. When trailers for a movie are distinctly different in tone, it's usually down to one of those two reasons. Given how readily the material could grow flat if it takes itself too seriously, however, Venom: Let There Be Carnage would do well to not leave the comedy at the door in favor of horror.
