a_chinn Review of Once Bitten

Once Bitten (1985)

Early Jim Carrey film is a mediocre 80s sex comedy without the sex

[5/10 · 3 September 2019]

Jim Carrey plays a horny high school student, as are all teenage boys in 80s sex comedies, when he is seduced by Lauren Hutton, who happens to be a blond centuries old vampire who needs the blood of a virgin to retain her youth and beauty. Carrey also has a wholesome high school sweetheart, who then gets jealous of the vampire seductress and lots of unfunny door slamming farcical shenanigans ensure, which includes Carrey's annoying, equally horny friends, and Hutton's vampire minions, one of whom is Cleavon Little playing Hutton's butler as an ugly gay stereotype, which is a "comedy" element that didn't age well at all. It's also odd that a sex comedy is rated PG-13. However, in the film's favor, Carrey is likable in a fairly restrained comedic role compared to the broad comedy he later became famous for, and there is one sequence at a high school dance were Hutton and Carrey's girlfriend have a dance battle of sorts that fairly clever, so it's not completely terrible. As a bonus, at the start of that high school dance scene, look fast for a young Megan Mullally, who checks in Carrey and his girlfriend for the Halloween costume dance. You can also look fast for Dean Stockwell as a valet attendant before his late 80s career renaissance following his role as Ben in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet." Also of interest, one of the films' four writers went on to co-write some animated classics such as "The Lion King," "James and the Giant Peach" and "Monster Inc." and the film's cinematographer was Adam Greenberg, who'd later go on to shoot classics like "Near Dark" and Terminator 1 & 2. Overall, this is not an 80s comedy classic and is in fact quite offensive at times for various reason, but is certainly not the worst 80s comedy out there (that distinction probably belongs to "Soul Man," where C. Thomas Howell poses as a young black man in order to get into Harvard). FUN FACT! The film was written for Elvira, but initially offered to Morgan Fairchild, who turned down the role that eventually went to Hutton.