Bite (2015) Reviews

• Decent but relies too much on its goo

  filmbizarro2015-08-06

  Chad Archibald has a number of notable titles under his belt as a producer with titles such as "Sweet Karma", "In the House of Flies", "Antisocial" and "Septic Man" to just name a few. While his filmography as a director is significantly smaller, there's enough there for some of our readers to have seen his work even though I have not. Going by his producer credits, I was excited to dig into his new body horror movie "Bite". Casey comes home from a bachelorette trip only a few days prior to the wedding. Some things that happened on the trip are still lingering on her mind, making her anxious and giving her cold feet before the wedding. But worst of all is a seemingly harmless bite that she got while in the water. The bug bite starts to grow. Soon she has a big boil of pus on her leg, and things about to get even worse. She hears things as if they are just beside her. She's spewing out translucent eggs. Yes, it escalates from here. You've likely heard about "Bite" from the articles about the people who puked and fainted. I have no plans to make my review a comment on someone's article - but while "Bite" definitely has gross things going on, it's unlikely to affect anyone but those with pretty weak stomachs. What we see in "Bite" is nothing new, especially now as we have gotten a few too many body horrors involving women who start to transform. But most of all, "Bite" is a movie about a woman turning into something insect-like, and it is still miles away from the grossness portrayed in Cronenberg's "The Fly". If we leave the comparisons for a second and just look at what this movie has to offer, there are certainly some gross scenes involving puke, pus and slimy eggs coming out of orifices. Unfortunately the transformation that Casey is about to experience never really goes beyond some layers or slime and bruises - at the very most looking like a burn victim. The apartment which essentially turns into her hive is an interesting addition that the other body horrors didn't really have, mostly because Casey does indeed turn into an insect being. However, the "hive" looks more like a haunted house attraction. In fact there are just a few scenes in the movie where the effects are really effective. Normally decent effects that would be just fine, but the recent trend of body horrors has seemed more like show reels of effects, or competitions between each other. "Bite" doesn't have much more to offer than its goo and pus, which certainly puts it far below a classic like the "The Fly". More recently I'd put it up against "Thanatomorphose", which didn't have too much going on outside of its effects either - but that one actually felt disgusting. Okay, let's put the effects to the side for a moment. The reason I am so harsh against this movie is that it simply doesn't stand out. From the beginning I had a hard time feeling sympathy for any of the characters, let alone Casey. There were no reasons for us to really care for the majority of the movie, and when reasons were given it sort of felt like it was too late. Her fiancé was okay but due to his annoying mother and the relationship they had he got dragged down with it. So right there we have two characters with a tragedy between them (her transformation), and yet I feel incredibly untouched by it. I don't really have any grudge again the actors, there were certainly fine, but the direction they were given was often very underwhelming. Scenes like them stumbling into Casey's hive of an apartment show some severe underreacting to what is going on. It's a horror movie, I get it - they need to walk into her apartment and have some stuff happen to them, but their reactions threw me out of the movie entirely. Going by the fact that it happened to most characters and not just one, I will say it's the fault of the direction and not the actors. There are some smaller things that I could dive into, but I don't want anyone to confuse my criticism with hate. Fact is, "Bite" is a pretty innocent horror movie. It seems to have the attitude that it wants to gross you out, but beyond that it doesn't step outside of many boundaries. It's a decent enough horror movie for the general fan to check out, especially if you haven't watched that many body horror movies. As a fan of the subgenre I will continue to watch what will come my way, but perhaps it is time to retire the transforming women for a while? The best body horror movies are rather complex and show a wide variety of talents. David Cronenberg built much of his fan base on the fact that he could deliver something incredibly gross, but at the same time very thought-provoking. We live in a time where everything has to be fast and over-the-top to satisfy this ADD generation, so it makes sense that the majority of new body horror movies focus solely on the disturbing effects. Personally I hope we can go back to when body and mind were equally important in the matter.

• Bite is too dependent of its gooey gore.

  robbieclaravall2016-05-10

  Bite doesn't have any substance to it at all. It is the type of film which advertises its over-the-top gore in order to gain cash and I'll admit, that's the one thing this movie tried to do decently. For a low budget film, there's a lot of effort placed in the FX and the horrors induced by this single infected bite. It's a bit disgusting when you first view it, but as you go on in the film, it gets overdone and repetitive. This film tried too hard to gross the viewer out by adding a lot of gooey substance, crunching insect noises and decaying corpses but the thing is, nothing is done with it in order to internalize the disturbing imagery in the viewer's mind. It just keeps on adding it, thinking that a lot of gore will gross the viewer out but it just gets rather gratuitous and mundane. But for a low budget film, I'll accept it; it did its best to go beyond any horror film in our cinemas. Other than that, the rest of the film is a mess. The casting doesn't feel right, the actors may range from okay to bad and the script is just plain horrible. Its one of those films I believe that all the filmmakers put their effort in the blood and the gore but ignore the other aspects of the story. I didn't like any of the characters except for Kirsten and it's difficult to care for the MC because albeit she's in a horrible state she still acts grim and immoral it's hard to feel any sense of sympathy for her. The dialogue isn't done very well to the point that it actually feels comedic and makes you question if this was trying to add humor to the story. This doesn't feel to have much of a plot, it just wanted to show the effects of having this infected bite. There are other aspects that it tried to include such as marriage issues, cheating and friendship but it all leads to the gore. In fact, it wasn't done very well in the first place and it feels hastily done and unnecessary to the film and what it wanted to show audiences which is, you got it right, the gooey gore. It relies to much on it to move the story forward when there isn't much of a story at all. Bite feels like wasted potential. The filmmakers seemed to forget that it was a movie and not some blood fest. Every thought was placed in the gore that the acting, the plot and the dialogue were neglected, making it for a mediocre and amateurish experience in the cinema. The FX is the only thing that can be closely considered to checking this movie out.

• Insect Horror meets Sci-Fi

  in19842016-05-20

  6.25 of 10. If you're looking for something beyond another spider film, The Fly, Spiderman, or the Thaw, this adds something new to mix. It's also ahead of the curve on the zika-like infections. Excellent visual and sound FX for a low-budget, indie film where the writer and director are the same person. So much horror is fantasy based that another strong part of this film is that there's reality/science integrated into the horror. If you want horror that's not based purely on nonsense, you'll definitely appreciate this film. The only weak part of the film involves the casting. With more budget and bigger actors, this could have easily been a more recognized film. As it is, it will probably pick up a cable audience and eventually turn into a cult hit.

• Standout performance

  clareypotter2017-10-14

  I love my friends, however, if I rocked up at one of their houses and it was covered in weird cobwebby shiz and over-sized frogspawn I'd be out of there. Also, speaking as a Brit, who are renowned for the stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on mentality, if I had a weeping leg and developed an ability to sleep underwater I'd get my ass to the hospital. Would have received 1star had it not been for the standout performance from Cyril the dog.

• A mixed bag of goo

  fairlesssam2017-07-25

  I enjoyed this movie, I had not heard about any of the hype until after I watched it so I had no preconceived ideas. Casey is getting married and goes on a hen party trip with two of her friends. They go off the beaten track to a natural pool which is recommended to them by someone they meet. Casey is bitten under the water by some kind of bug. After returning home she notices a rash on her shoulder whilst in the bath. Areas of her body become inflamed with raised large lumps, they are painful and develop into gross pustules. She feels unwell, begins to get sick and basically gets worse and worse. Along with this going on she has the mother-in-law-to-be from hell who literally hates her guts and a friend who wants her fiancé and steals her engagement ring. Casey mutates into a gross goo-dripping creature that lays little ball eggs and makes a big slimy mess. There have been a lot of negative reviews about this movie but I think that is possibly down to pre-movie hype that did not live up to expectations. For me I found the movie a little bit slow after Casey began feeling ill. I quite liked the characters and how they were all a bit off. I was frustrated at how Casey didn't go to the doctors when the initial symptoms began appearing as that would have been what any relatively normal person would have done. If she had have gone to the doctors this would have given the movie a bit more depth and could have added another dynamic. As the movie progresses and Casey becomes more and more mutated I thought it was really good, I like the concept of making a nest and how she changed. I felt for her. There was tension and the makings of a good thriller as her friends began to try to get in touch with her and enter her apartment. Yes there are many flaws but it does still stand up as a pretty good horror. It caught my imagination and kept me thinking about it for some time after watching which is always a good indication of a film you have enjoyed.