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Body horror films are types of flicks that do their hardest to gross you out, be it through teleportation mishaps (The Fly), to sex with a man who has sex with dead people (Contracted). Bite is a body horror film that succeeds at grossing out the viewer, providing plenty of outstanding practical effects. The film is not bad, but it is restrictive with the plot, keeping the main character and story confined to one set (an apartment), with only a few people involved. Bite is a low-budget Canadian horror film being released in limited theaters, On Demand and Digital on May 6th from Scream Factory. The film is not going to impress everyone, but I think if you give it a chance, you’ll come out liking something about it. Read on to see if you agree.
[tabbyending] [tabby title=”Plot Summary”]While on her bachelorette party getaway, Casey, the bride to be, gets a seemingly harmless bite from an unknown insect. After returning home with cold feet, Casey tries to call off her wedding but before she’s able to, she starts exhibiting insect like traits. Between her physical transformation and her wedding anxiety, Casey succumbs to her new instincts and begins creating a hive that not only houses her translucent eggs, but feeds on the flesh of others. As her transformation becomes complete, Casey discovers that everything can change with a single bite.
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Events for Bite start off pretty damn scary and not in a good way. The movie opens with the dreaded found footage style of the lazy man film-making. I groaned loudly when I saw this, but thankfully after the opening scene of the movie, it switches to the normal style of shooting (aka, the non-lazy way).
Bite follows Casey (Elma Begovic) as she gets bit on the ass by a mysterious bug, whilst on her bachelorette trip to the tropics. When she returns home, she notices the bite is getting worse. As with all other body horror films, Casey decides to stupidly shrug it off and not go to the doctor. As the days go on, she starts getting worse and worse, eventually – and arguably the best scenes in the film – regurgitating pearly looking eggs aplenty.
Bite is a fairly simple film, with only a few people and very limited set pieces. Obviously, this is due to the scale of the budget, but it does hurt the film some. Some viewers are going to feel cheated when they realize not much is actually going to happen. There is a total of around five characters in the film and not much character development is done on them, even Elma Begovic’s character is paper thin for the most part. Also, don’t expect the movie to explain what bit her and why this is all happening. However, if what you are craving is some gnarly gross-out scenes, you’ll be very happy with Bite. It seems most of the budget was spent on the practical effects and they all work quite well.
I do wish Bite would have expanded upon the story and spent more time on Casey’s transformation. Things happen fairly quickly and the film only gives us glimpses of the crazy stuff that’s happening to her. There are all these neat little things that Casey can do, but it’s quickly introduced for a bit and then pushed to the side. This is because the movie only has a few people around, so Casey never gets the chance to go full on crazy with her transformed self. The ending does suggest a potential sequel, which I would be game for if things were expanded upon and moved to a different, less restricting environment.
I ended up enjoying Bite, with only a few caveats that I’ve listed above. It’s a low budget film for sure, but the money that was spent on the practical effects more than makes up for any sort of limitations in story and acting. This is a body horror movie after all and us horror fans want our stomach turning moments, which Bite offers up tenfold. Give this movie a chance and I think you might end up liking it.
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