Once Bitten

Jim Carrey is hilarious and this is just the beginning of the stars career. It's plot is nothing special and the acting is alright but Jim makes this movie. You will need to see this movie if you are a fan of Jim's. This is a great film and definitely classic for 80's film. Check this film out soon. It is a winner.

In Los Angeles, the virgin college student Mark Kendall (Jim Carrey) is unsuccessfully trying to get into his girlfriend Robin Pierce (Karen Kopins) paints. He decides to go to a bar in Hollywood with his also virgin friends Russ (Skip Lackey) and Jamie (Thomas Ballatore) to flirt and score. Meanwhile, the 400 year-old vampire Countess (Lauren Hutton) and her driver and butler Sebastian (Cleavon Little) are seeking out a virgin lad to keep her beauty and youth appearance. The Countess needs to feed three times on a virgin before the Halloween that is close otherwise she will look older. When the Countess stumbles with Mark in the bar, she brings Mark home and seduces him. Mark changes his behavior and soon he realizes that he is turning into a vampire. Is there any chance to save Mark?

"Once Bitten" is one of my favorite movies ever and I do not know how many times I have watched it. The plot is very funny and Lauren Hutton is impressively beautiful and sexy. This movie for me is another gem from the 80's, maybe one of the best decades of the American Cinema history. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Procura-se Rapaz Virgem" ("Seeking a Virgin Lad")

Lauren Hutton is a vampire simply named "The Countess" who must bite a virgin three times per year (ending on Halloween) in order to retain her youth and beauty. However, living in California in the mid-1980s, it's becoming impossible to find a virgin.

This is a horror comedy that's not exactly atmospheric, thrilling or suspenseful (it's also completely free of gore), and not exactly hilarious. Rather, it's just a very lighthearted, mostly enjoyable film that happens to be about vampires, although it's primarily interesting for a one of the earliest, pre-fame appearances of Jim Carrey, and for nostalgia, as Once Bitten is firmly mired in mid-1980s pop culture.

The biggest flaw is that the mythology behind the film is not very well explained or followed. The Countess finds Mark Kendall (Carrey) fairly easily, but we're not shown her and her clan looking very hard until just before Halloween--they had all year. We're never told if the clan has to follow the same rules. It doesn't seem so in the end, but why not? It's never very clear why The Countess can't just go after, say, an eleven year old. When things are getting down to the wire near the climax of the film, there are other virgins around, but The Countess just ignores them as potential drinking fountains of youth. It seems like maybe she has to bite the same person, rather than three potentially different people, three times, but that's never directly stated. How long does it have to be between bites? Why couldn't she just bite the one person twice, then bite someone else three times within a few hours?

Although I don't usually like to try to apply real world logic to films, in this case, I couldn't help it. Once Bitten isn't meant solely as a comedy, and there is a long sequence during the climax that should be as suspenseful as it is humorous. But the suspense was gone, because all I could think of where the questions above instead. To make it worse, the timeline of the film gets a bit muddled, and we lose any sense of when Halloween night is actually occurring. At one point, during a Halloween dance, that seems like that should be Halloween night, but then it seems like Halloween should be over already at a later point. At that later point, it seems like the dance must have been on a different, earlier day. That this crucial fact for suspense in the film isn't clear is a problem. Once Bitten suffers from sloppy scriptwriting and sloppy direction from Howard Storm, whose resume shows that he's much more comfortable with half-hour television sitcoms.

But if one can overlook some of those flaws, Once Bitten is worth at least one viewing. Carrey's performance is good. He easily shows why he became a star in later films. His transformation over the course of the film is great, and a scene with Carrey in full vampire make-up and clothing makes one long to see a serious vampire film with him as a star. I also liked the ice cream truck and took it as a nod to Phantasm (1979). There are enough comic moments that most viewers will at least be occasionally smiling, if not laughing out loud. A scene where Mark's friends are trying to check him for evidence of vampirism is a standout, as is much of the material where Mark and his friends interact. Carrey's scenes with his parents are even better, but there are too few of them. Both Hutton and Karen Kopins (as Mark's girlfriend, Robin) are sensuous. The Countess' vampire clan is severely underused, but they are okay when they do appear. And even the obligatory mid-80s music video/dance scene is mostly tolerable.

I also enjoyed the subtext that sex is a means of protection from evil, rather than something dangerous to be avoided. Robin's attitude about Mark's relationships was also a nice change of pace.

This is definitely a film that needs to be approached with lowered expectations, but in the right mood, you just might enjoy it.

Exploiting the typical male teen's desperate attempt to lose his virginity, 'Once Bitten' is a light comedy from the teen horror comedy catalog of the 1980s, though not as funny as say, 'My Best Friend is a Vampire,' nor as satirical as 'My Boyfriend's Back' (a 90s comedy). In part, the comedy is never too adventurous with comedic quips, and instead, carries with it for some parts in the movie, a rather unnecessarily serious mood.

Lauren Hutton plays the sleek, voluptuous Countess, a vampire desperate for virgin blood in order to sustain her youth. Lucky for her, she is conveniently on the prowl at a Hollywood night club the same time that high school teen Mark Kendall (Jim Carrey) and his two buddies arrive for a guys night out. Mark might think he's about to lose his virginity, but instead, finds himself in a whole lot of trouble once he falls into the seductive clutches of the Countess. He displays all the symptoms of a vampire: irritability, pale complexion, a sudden lust for rare meat, and a newfound love for all-black attire. But, his "first time" with the Countess will by no means his last as she follows him around town and haunts his dreams (I guess, they're really light male teen eroticism) as she intends to complete whatever vampire ritual will sustain her youth permanently.

It's a nice comedy, worth of a lazy noon viewing, and particularly for fans of the cult horror comedy. But, as far as vampires and desperate teen virgins go, I would highly recommend 'My Best Friend is a Vampire.'

starring: Lauren Hutton, Jim Carrey, Karen Kopins, Thomas Ballatore, and Skip Lackey.

plot: The sexy vampire, Countess (Lauren Hutton) needs to drink the blood of a virgin three times before Halloween. Mark (Jim Carrey) is bored in his relationship with his girlfriend Robin (Karen Kopins) because she doesn't want to have sex. So Mark takes his two buddies Jamie (Thomas Ballatore) and Russ (Skip Lackey) to Hollywood to find some chicks to have a one night stand with. Mark meets Countess and she gets him drunk, he thinks he's having a one night stand but she drinks his blood once. When Mark, Jamie, and Russ go back to town Countess follows them. She finds Mark and drinks his blood a second time, then she starts following him to get a third. Soon, Robin, Jamie, and Russ find out that he is slowly turning into a vampire. Then, Mark is captured on the night before Halloween. Will Robin, Jamie, and Russ save Mark in time?

This comedy/horror about a sexy vampire searching for a virgin is fun to watch! This movie is hilarious and well written, and has lots of fun cheesy 80's music.