Bite

The acting is sub par and isn't helped by a shoddy script. Where the budget was used well was on make-up and practical FX.

The title card was played over loud eerie music that was blatantly stolen from Insidious (which is also rubbish).

The body horror was stolen from The Fly.

The cocoon ideas were stolen from Alien(s).

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.

"Bite" is nowhere near original or innovating, but it's guaranteed to entertain the gorehounds and sick puppies among us. It's a body-horror galore, with blood, vomit, pus, and other bodily fluids richly squirting out of a variety of body holes. You'll need to be patient for a while, though, as the film starts out rather slow and traditional. Casey, together with her two BFFs Jill and Kirsten, celebrates her bachelorette weekend in tropical Costa Rica, and naturally also the "cold feet" syndromes come to the surface. While swimming in a remote lagoon, Casey gets bitten by an undefined insect or parasite, which causes a gradual but extreme metamorphosis. The plot is derivative, but the make-up effects are terrific. The footage of Casey evolving into a life-size bug is often gruesome, the turning of her cozy apartment into a creepy insect's lair is horrifying, and the few kills that take place are brutal and nauseating. It's not quite Cronenberg, but good enough to get a recommendation from me.

After seeing the trailer for Bite and reading online articles of how viewers at various film fests passed out during showings, I couldn't wait to see it, After more than a year it (at last!) popped up on my local cable channels On-demand roster. I happily shelled out $5.99 and hoped to see a film that would at least make me flinch several times.

But like $100 pay-per-view fights, unorthodox political candidates, and most rap CDs, this film didn't come close to living up to the hype. Bite, simply put, is done in by its own excesses. When a horror film relies solely on gross-out gimmickry rather than clever use of lighting, camera angles, or plausible plot, then the element of fright is replaced by boredom, nausea or both. Community theater acting doesn't help.

Elma Begovic plays Casey, a recently engaged twenty-something who while out celebrating with her girls, is bitten by some sort of water insect. Rather than seek medical attention, she ignores the mark left behind, even as it becomes larger and more disgusting. By the time Casey realizes this is no ordinary wound, the drastic effects are manifested.

This film contains every horror movie cliché you've seen before— single females going into dark venues to investigate; single woman falling down as she attempts to flee; overblown makeup to accent the drastic physical changes of victims; and sex scenes that are not only gratuitous, but fail to deliver the expected shock—say in the manner of the bedroom scene from the first Nightmare On Elm Street.

Poor pacing and the lack of anything original makes one want to yawn rather than scream. The director (Chad Archibald) has no idea how to use shadow or the camera to build suspense. It is so drab it makes anything produced by Rob Zombie look Oscar-worthy.

If you like being grossed out, you might get excited by Bite. If you're looking for something that makes you worry about having nightmares when you fall asleep, you'll find more chills—and better acting—in episodes of The Outer Limits.

But good God did they pull those horrid actresses randomly off the street?! That was the real horror here. It was like a bad high school play and the dialogue made it even worse. 5 stars for all the slimy gore, but zero stars for the laughable and cringy acting.