Casey
(Elma Begovich) goes to an island for her bachelorette party and is bitten by
something in the water while swimming.
She returns home with a case of cold feet, a bad stomach bug, and
ever-growing pus-filled sores on her bite.
Before long, she transforms into a slimy, disgusting monster, which is
bound to put a damper on her wedding day.
I
was a little nervous during the pre-title sequence as it was one of those Found
Footage deals. The scenes of the girls
partying it up in clubs and on the beach were done shaky-cam style, which
didn’t give me a lot of hope. Thankfully,
it switches over to a “real” movie shortly thereafter, with only a few snippets
of the Found Footage clips used as flashbacks. Once it settles down into its groove, Bite
becomes one heck of a disgusting ride.
Begovich’s
tour-de-force performance really catapults the film along. She’s quite good in the early scenes where
she’s dealing with the stresses of her upcoming nuptials, a fiancé that doesn’t
quite have the same goals as her, and a royal bitch of a future mother in-law
(Lawrene Denkers, in a fun performance).
As fine as she is in these scenes, Begovich really excels once the
transformation takes hold, and she turns into a twitchy, wild-eyed,
acid-spewing mutant.
The
ensuing Cronenbergian transformation takes some of its cues directly from his
version of The Fly (right down to the fingernail scene), but that doesn’t mean
it’s not effective. Director Chad
Archibald delivers the goods on all the gooey, gross, disgusting set pieces,
and the third act is sure to make you squirm in your seat. My favorite moment though was the grotesque dream
sequence where Casey arrives at her baby shower and… I wouldn’t dream of
spoiling it.
In
addition to being a nauseating horror film, Bite also manages to be quite funny,
especially once Casey’s friends react to her slimy condition. Her interactions with her bitchy mother
in-law are good for a few laughs too. Sure,
it may stumble out of the gate a bit, but by the time the showstopping FX-laden
finale rolls around, I guarantee you’ll be grinning from ear to ear.
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