Bite Me!

Where to start on this one? It is a "horror" film that aspires for camp, and never takes itself seriously. At all. Nothing is worse than a movie that aims for camp and misses. This one misses, but not by a wide mark. It almost makes it. The bug effects are cheesy, and the filmmakers know it. (I still found them creepy, but I am a major arachnophobe. To anyone else, they're just kind of bad.) I considered this to basically be a T & A movie with the comic horror grafted on to have something going on between nude scenes. The T & A aspect of the film was much better than I thought it would be. First, since the setting is a strip club, much of the nudity is of strippers on stage, which is one of the least erotic ways to portray female skin. But it really was better than you would think, partly because they weren't really playing it "straight" in these scenes, but sort of playing it for chuckles. Second, as anyone who reads a lot my reviews would know, (NOTE: I would find it shocking, and a bit disturbing, if there were any such person) I have been on a long anti-silicone crusade. Ladies, those big stiff, spherical mounds of minerals are UGLY!!! Most or all of the boobies on display here are natural-looking and beautiful. Yes, they may not be DDD's, but IMHO, are a hundred times prettier than, say, Julie Strain's. Misty Mundae is really pretty and sweet-looking, if not the best actress in the world. And especially pretty was Erika Smith. I'd like to see both of them get chances in better movies. The three main male characters were silly, attempted campy, way-over-the-top, messes. If you're going to check this one out, do so for the pretty girls, not the horror or the camp. You'll be much less disappointed.

Every now and then I like watching silly crap. And this movie succeeds in being what it wants to be: Total silly nonsense. Add a little fun stop-motion effects (mutant sex-drive-increasing ticks crawling around everywhere and a human-sized mutant tick-man at the end) and quite a lot of nekkid boobies (provided by Misty Mundae, amongst others), and you could say this one is somewhat of a fun watch. But the acting often is so abominable that it hurts. In the end, all that remains is a movie that isn't going anywhere, but you can have a fun time just staying at the main location of this movie (being a titty-bar infested by the aforementioned critters). Near the end the movie gives more than one nod to older giant monster classics (and this doesn't exactly mean that there is a big climax with a giant monster reeking havoc or anything - just see it and you'll understand).

I enjoy watching cheesy horror movies. The more far-fetched and badly filmed they are, usually the more entertaining. Bite Me was my first and last "Shock-o-Rama" experience. The story had promise (bio-engineered marijuana, giant bugs, and strippers) but the acting is below porno-level, the effects (especially the bugs) look like they were done in Paintshop, and the story contains so many shower scenes and so much idiot dialog that getting through the entire movie was exhausting. Never watch this movie, and if this is an example of Shock-o-Rama's material, stay away from Shock-o-Rama. If you're looking for a good cheesy horror movie, check out "Demons at the Door" or "Corpses are Forever".

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of a Brett Piper film is that we are going to divulge the next hour or so into a stop motion monster fest. You like what Ray Harryhausen did for the genre back in the KONG KONG and CLASH OF THE TITAN days? Then I think you might like what the ole Piper boy can do himself. If you don't mind the gratuitous violence and sex appeal. I'm pretty sure you don't.

Some crazy killer weed is being shipped to a strip club where it will soon be distributed amongst the drug induced culture. But before it gets to the club, the first of the carriers get into a little trouble with some sort of spider attack. They seemed to have crept there way out of the crates containing the weed and onto the unsuspecting victims. The next pick up grabs the weed from the now deceased delivery guys and off to the strip club it goes which now a corrupt little weasel gets his hands into it to soon make a quick buck, not knowing what he really is getting his greasy little paws into. Before we get into the bug problem, the strippers Crystal (Misty Mundae), Amber (Caitlin ross), and Teresa (Julian Wells) are over over worked. To the point that Amber passes out while doing a cute and tiresome routine. Teresa is a bumbling goof ball that trips over her own 2 feet. The bar is a little in the slow. The ladies are tired and now the show needs a little pizazz. Well, lets bring in the shipment and now the fun begins. The critters are escaping and chaos ensues. The DEA gets involved since the owner is such a crook, but what he gets himself into is a whole other story. Well, not really but what happens to him is a surprise also. Bugs, boobs, jokes and laughs and a little bit of the goopy red sauce for the extra goodness.

I like to say that this would be another viewing for sure. Funny, gory and just plain cool with Brett's stop motion goofiness. The cast does a pretty good job strippin and having there way with the bugs. The only thing I found kind of a rip was the exterminator (Rob Monkiewicz of ARACHNIA and SCREAMING DEAD) playing a direct rip off of the UPS guy on Mad TV. Total rip, a little to obvious but still funny none the less. Usually he plays the serious, good call. It looks pretty flawless this time around with the stop motion. In ARACHNIA, it seemed way to cheap. Almost can't see the seems most of the time in this. Great job on that one.

A documentary, How to crash a car in 2 hours featurette, rue Morgue's Festival of Fear world premier screening (I was looking for myself in it but to no avail), Making movies with Misty, CKY video, CKY mini documentary, Booklet and more. This is surely a great bang for your buck if you are weary of cheap films. Kind of cheap but not on a Sub Rosa Studios cheapness. This is great compared to those. Long live the bugs!!!!

'Bite Me!' was great fun watching, I enjoyed every minute if it! Every character is achieving the opposite of what he/she intends to, that is the formula of the comedy effect. The manager of the club tries to organize everything, but gets mad over the whole chaos instead. Buzz the Exterminator loves insects too much to hurt them. The dancers are too tired to dance. And the lady who wants to ruin the manager becomes an attraction of his club instead. Well, for a short time at least. Only the bugs are good at what they are doing: bite! Even if the side-effects are remarkable...

While everyone else would have used a guy in a suit to play the bug monster guy, Brett Piper used stop-animation for that, too, which is an amazing piece of work. Coincidentally, I made some stop-animation student films in the 1980s myself on 8mm film and know how much time, patience and care a few seconds of such a scene take, which is why hardly anyone still uses that technique anymore. Fortunately, exploitation flicks sometimes have a lot more to offer than just the female anatomy bits and buckets of blood. Not that I'm about to complain about either of these two, though... It's bug for the buck.