Even more so than with lame zombie-comedies or dimwitted masked killers, I think I've had it completely with dysfunctional and/or insane cannibalistic families. I'm fed up with pretty boys or girls turning out to be part of a psychopathic household. I'm sick of the sneering and hysterical brothers they are hiding in the basement. And I'm tired of the deeply religious elderly patriarch and matriarch turning out to be craziest ones of the whole bunch. There, I had to get that out of my system...
Films like "Bite" aren't a total waste of time, but they feature 0% originality and nothing even remotely surprising or memorable. From the first moment lead girl Nina steps from the pouring rain into the car of the friendly old Beryl, you already know she'll be in more danger now than from whatever she was running away for.
A lengthy flashback enlightens us that Nina and her lesbian partner Yaz were pretending to be animal activists, infiltrating into a lair where illegal dog fights take place. Their real intention, however, was the downright stupid idea to rob the gangsters, but obviously their plan backfired. To start anew elsewhere, Nina and Yaz decide to rob the friendly and talkative old lady that gave Nina a lift. But guess what, granny Beryl isn't as naïve and harmless as she looks, and her husband with his surgical tools in the basements definitely isn't.
"Bite" is a spitfire of one dreadful cliché after another, and there nearly isn't enough gore, sleaze, black humor, or general weirdness to compensate for the lack of plot-creativity. Co-writer/director James Owen is a nice guy (met him at the festival where "Bite" premiered) but he makes all the wrong choices. For example, why didn't all the robust criminal henchmen get lured to Beryl and Gerald's house? This would have resulted is much more glorious gore and bloodshed, and thus less time spent on Yaz' dull moral dilemmas and drug-abuse. And what's the point of making a piano with human fingers instead of strings if you can't hear any music?
