After seeing the trailer for Bite and reading online articles of how viewers at various film fests passed out during showings, I couldn't wait to see it, After more than a year it (at last!) popped up on my local cable channels On-demand roster. I happily shelled out $5.99 and hoped to see a film that would at least make me flinch several times.
But like $100 pay-per-view fights, unorthodox political candidates, and most rap CDs, this film didn't come close to living up to the hype. Bite, simply put, is done in by its own excesses. When a horror film relies solely on gross-out gimmickry rather than clever use of lighting, camera angles, or plausible plot, then the element of fright is replaced by boredom, nausea or both. Community theater acting doesn't help.
Elma Begovic plays Casey, a recently engaged twenty-something who while out celebrating with her girls, is bitten by some sort of water insect. Rather than seek medical attention, she ignores the mark left behind, even as it becomes larger and more disgusting. By the time Casey realizes this is no ordinary wound, the drastic effects are manifested.
This film contains every horror movie cliché you've seen before— single females going into dark venues to investigate; single woman falling down as she attempts to flee; overblown makeup to accent the drastic physical changes of victims; and sex scenes that are not only gratuitous, but fail to deliver the expected shock—say in the manner of the bedroom scene from the first Nightmare On Elm Street.
Poor pacing and the lack of anything original makes one want to yawn rather than scream. The director (Chad Archibald) has no idea how to use shadow or the camera to build suspense. It is so drab it makes anything produced by Rob Zombie look Oscar-worthy.
If you like being grossed out, you might get excited by Bite. If you're looking for something that makes you worry about having nightmares when you fall asleep, you'll find more chills—and better acting—in episodes of The Outer Limits.
