Question: What exactly happens to a host's body once the symbiote emerges? At the end of Venom, when Venom is threatening the robber, he partially opens his face, and we see Eddie's face. In this movie, when Cletus/Carnage is escaping from prison, guards start shooting at Carnage who then splits open his entire midsection but Cletus is nowhere to be seen.
Question: How did Patrick Mulligan get a piece of a symbiote? He was killed by Shriek, not by a piece of Carnage.
Answer: It is deliberately never shown on screen, so unless it gets answered in a sequel the audience is left to speculate. Mulligan does come into direct contact with Carnage since Cletus is the person who kidnapped him. In addition, the fight between Venom and Carnage takes place all over the church with the pair constantly stabbing, slashing, and bludgeoning each other. A piece of either symbiote could be somewhere in that building. Again, though this is just speculation since it's never shown how Mulligan is infected.
Question: How did Cletus of all people know of Eddie getting dumped by Anne and being abused by his father? Were those stories publicized?
Answer: If they conducted a one-on-one interview, Eddie might've risked sharing some personal things to get Cletus to open up more. Eddie also took her leaving pretty hard. He might be one of those people who, you spend five minutes talking to them and they're GOING to bring up their ex.
Answer: Those are things Cletus would have talked about during their interviews. Eddie ignored all that and concentrated on finding the other bodies, so Cletus feels like Eddie didn't tell his side of the story.
Answer: The host and symbiote merge fully. So the symbiote can totally disappear into the host and the host can totally disappear into the symbiote. They can also split again, or partially, at will. It just depends on who gets to be the active version at that time.
lionhead
I am not up to speed with recent Marvel canon, but in the comics it's never been that way? The symbiote can surely slink inside the host (especially Carnage in Kasady's blood), but the humans can't turn into shapeless goo. Comics aside, that sequence from the movie is mind-boggling; I can sorta explain it thinking the symbiote just tore Kasady's torso in half and then reattached it instantly (in other parts of the movie Eddie gets basically stabbed with what would be lethal wounds).
Sammo ★
Actually, in the comics it's long been established that Carnage's healing factor is Deadpool-levels of broken. There are numerous moments where Carnage is impaled, crushed, decapitated, has his neck twisted, even grenades blowing up in his jaws and straight up nailed by military missiles... AND HE'S JUST FINE AND WALKS IT OFF LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. He absolutely could casually tear himself open with no drawback whatsoever.
"Could" tear himself open, does he usually?"Can turn into shapeless goo", has he? One thing is to regenerate the torso, another thing is to manipulate your body parting before the bullets reach you.I don't really see that from the example posted, but my curiosity aside, given we're talking about the movie anyway, I really don't see Kasady depicted as a shapeshifter, and him and the symbiote in this movie are entirely separated at the end (pending a sequel of course).
Sammo ★
Also, for Carnage specifically, the human absolutely can turn into shapeless goo. Makes sense, actually, given that the symbiote canonically merged into Kasady's own cells and microscopic DNA, something even Venom and its hosts can't replicate https://2.bp.blogspot.com/9DjIg5e1HwLrwx-lhLjXxlUqzici7xajVTQZMhEHW8a0X9BqdRFE4U6eaBuPKXJgb8zSxkTytpvh=s1600 so the "symbiote-opening-up-the-host-body-with-holes" being a Carnage specific thing isn't surprising at all, in fact, given it's the same body.