Review by David Paul Hellings
@HellingsOnFilm
“So graphic that sick bags were handed out at the world premiere, the gut-wrenching gore fest Bite, about one woman’s sickening transformation, gets its first UK DVD release in October courtesy of Second Sight Films.
While partying on a bachelorette getaway with her friends, bride-to-be Casey (Elma Begovic – Tear Us Apart) is bitten by a mysterious, unseen bug. On returning home what first appears to be a nasty infection rapidly mutates into something far more sinister as Casey takes on an horrific insect-like transformation.
Shedding skin, vomiting acidic bile, biting off nails and excreting slime drenched eggs all over her newly created nest, Casey must now find flesh to feed on.
As her transformation becomes complete, Casey discovers that everything can change with a single bite.
Written and directed by Chad Archibald (The Drownsman) this fantastically gruesome body-horror will be released on DVD on 10 October 2016.
Are you prepared to take a Bite?”
Info – AIM publicity
Review:
Taking out the minor revenge aspect that the film could have dropped, “Bite” is finally a new horror release that actually delivers. What begins seemingly as another teens in trouble outing quickly becomes an engaging body horror that also delivers on the gore aspect.
Director Chad Archibald approaches his effective body horror with the right take and delivers one of the stronger horrors in recent years, and certainly the best body horror since Kevin Smith’s deeply disturbing “Tusk”.
The days of “Freaks”, through to the Cronenberg era of “Shivers” and “Rabid”, then “The Fly” show that there has always been an audience for the macabre, the invasion of us; us being changed into something else, and now unknown to those we knew best. There is a horrible injustice at the heart of body horror: innocent people turned into nasty things. Whether it’s the ‘one of us’ moment of shock in the realisation that you are no longer you, or the final moment when humanity dies and only the monster now remains, body horror is the must go to place if the current horror genre isn’t to be beaten to death by haunted house films, most of which are simply going through the cookie cutter movements and are simply more Hollywood writing by numbers.
“Bite” delivers enough of those nasty moments when bad things happen to people who didn’t deserve the extent of what they got; and it’s visually and graphically and effectively shown, which is a pleasant change. There’s a morbid delight also in watching a strong performance from Elma Begovic, as the picture of white privilege is distorted into monstrous effect.
The overrated “The Human Centipede” series showed a mad scientist and his freakish experiment and had moments of interest, but the trilogy didn’t meet the promises of the hype. Body horror, though, is increasingly proving an interesting area genre-wise and a welcome break from the standard tropes being released of late. “Bite” works. Bite has bite.
