Bit

Bit (2019) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a young lady who leaves home and moves in with her brother in Los Angeles. As she adjusts to the big city she encounters four lesbian vampires who turn her and flips her life upside down.

This movie is written and directed by Brad Michael Elmore (Wolfman Pop) and stars Diana Hopper (Goliath), Nicole Maines (Supergirl), Zolee Griggs (Bride Wars), Friday Chamberlain (The Fate of the Furious) and Char Diaz (Mayans).

The cast for this is pretty well selected outside of maybe the villain. The settings and backdrops fit the storyline well. There were some entertaining kill scenes too that reminded me of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The flashback scenes were pretty good also and funny. The storyline was straightforward and the ending was cliche and as you'd expect.

Overall this is a below average addition to the horror genre that I wouldn't go out of my way to see. I would score this a 3.5/10 and recommend skipping.

I am feeling generous so I will give Bit a 5. Watchable, but ultimately not a good movie. To be fair, the acting is pretty good although the roles are not exactly demanding, the effects are well done, the concept is even really pretty good, but it is so chock full of cringeworthy sexy Vampire stuff; so tailored to people who never grew out of their teens even though they are now in their twenties (or older), that it is really hard to appreciate that there is a good movie in there somewhere. It also so badly wants to be serialized (it even quite directly says so in an epilogue) that it avoids giving a satisfactory ending. Not even a THE END???... just a straight up to be continued (and to be honest I wouldn't bet on there ever being that follow up).

I can not stress enough how chockablock full of generic teen content it is. Sexy young twenties Vamps, ''underground'' raves and parties oozing sexuality, innuendo, wealth and young sexiness, and, of course, the naive small town protagonist who is seduced and who is going to be a victim, but has ''a certain something'' (although I can't tell what that something is except maybe being a bit similar to a certain someone in Twilight) that makes her get brought into the family. It has the Nosferatu disadvantages mostly glossed over... weakness to sunlight removed, far more control over blood lust (unless you don't feed for several days of course), garlic aversion removed, etc... which I don't really have a problem with except that it is so generic. The characters are similarly cookie cutter drab, each of which would have been perfect in Buffy, Twilight, maybe Blade, or any other pop vampire movie of the past twenty or so years. There are some current issues in the film as well, but they are mostly shoehorned in and do little more than pay lip service to a narrative of female empowerment and identity than actually serve a real function. This really is a just vampire fantasy at the core.

And of course... Dracula himself is there, but mostly as a background plot device, which I also don't really have a problem with to be honest. Not every vampire movie has to be about Dracula-- I would actually prefer if it wasn't anyway.

Now if you want teen content, this movie is likely VERY MUCH up your alley. Like I said, the concept has some freshness, and the production is actually pretty solid. If you are looking for something really new, there are definitely MUCH better things to spend your time watching.

The comedy aspect is how campy it is. Honestly it is right up there with some of the best vampire movies. It will be a cult classic for sure.

The first 20 minutes had me worried that this was going to be a stridently anti-man angry feminist film, and not in a good way. (There's a place for those, but not in my teen vampire movies.) However, the tone evens out and the message of the overall movie is much better. Like Lost Boys, this isn't a deep movie, but it's fun, and the soundtrack is good, and we had a lot of fun watching it. There are a few times where the humor didn't quite reach its obvious intent, but overall, it's a good movie.

Serious kudos to the film for hiring a trans actress to play a trans character, but also for making that a minor part of the story, rather than a Very Special Episode. It's just part of the character's background that makes her who she is, and it's handled very well.

(Side note to the Boomers and older Gen-X folks: Like The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Daybreak, Bit is made with Millennial/Gen-Z values. In our era, one non-white character and one girl were considered appropriately diverse for any group of otherwise white, male heroes. Movies like Bit, however, speak to the younger generations who live in a much more diverse world and have much different baseline expectations for that. If you find yourself irked by it, try acknowledging that it's not *your* teen years that are being represented. It's okay if movies like this aren't about or "for" us. Letting go of the need to have them be "for" us is the best way I've found to enjoy them for what they are.)

I went into this movie, hoping to genuinely enjoy it, as I had been excited to watch it. Unfortunately, I didn't. The concept is nice, but it wasn't properly fleshed out. Near the end, it all got rushed. What also bothered me was the music. It was too loud in several scenes throughout the movie, drowning out the dialogue. And it was a bit flaky how they sometimes abruptly stopped it rather than fading it out. I'm disappointed because it could have been a great film. If Nicole wasn't in it I probably would have rated it lower.