Bite is a 2015 body horror film written and directed by Chad Archibald and starring Elma Begovic, Annette Wozniak, Denise Yuen, Jordan Gray, Lawrene Denkers, Barry Birnberg, Daniel Klimitz, Tianna Nori, and Caroline Palmer. It was produced by Black Fawn Films and Breakthrough Entertainment. The plot is about a young woman who is bitten by a waterborne insect while in Costa Rica and suffers horrifying consequences.
Plot
Casey celebrates her bachelorrette party with her friends Kirsten and Jill in Costa Rica. She is bitten by an insect. She is however too preoccupied with her issues at home to take note. An over-bearing mother-in-law, and cold feet over her impending wedding are at the top of her list of concerns. Casey is beginning to doubt the upcoming wedding. In addition, she notes strong changes to herself. Her body mutates slowly, her senses get worse. She can no longer feed herself and she is plagued by nightmares. When she wakes up one day, there are insect eggs in her apartment. Jared's mother invades Casey's apartment to challenge her. Casey kills her by spitting acid. Her friend Kirsten is very worried and visits Casey, but she also kills her when Kirsten finds the body of Mrs. Kennedy and panics. Casey's girlfriend Jill is actually in love with Jared. In order to prevent the wedding, she stole Casey's engagement ring on Costa Rica and let Casey believe that she had a one-night stand. In fact, Casey was forced into sex while drunk against her will. This was filmed by Jill, who shows Jared only pictures of how Casey is kissed by the man. Jill seduces Jared into sex in her car but is heard by Casey because of her tighter senses. She releases a loud, superhuman cry that causes nausea and vomiting in Jill and Jared. Jill enters Casey's apartment and is overwhelmed. She is stunned and tied to a chair. When she wakes up again, Casey, meanwhile heavily mutated, forces her to watch the videos of her rape. She also forces Jill to call Jared, who then enters the apartment. Casey kills Jill, causing a fight between Jared and her. Although Jared can kill Casey, he is seriously injured by a sting. He drags himself back to his apartment and tries to dial the emergency call with his mobile, but fails. A week later, the entire house is quarantined. The police raid the house and find the bodies of Mrs. Kennedy, Jill and Kirsten in Casey's apartment. In Jared's apartment, they find the seriously injured and already mutated Jared in a kind of cocoon. When they want to help him, many eggs and insects swell from his body. These attack the police. At the end of the film, two joggers are talking about an upcoming trip to Costa Rica. One of the two is bitten by an insect.
The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 50% based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 5.81/10. Metacritic reports an aggregated score of 57 based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". The beginning of the film and character development in particular were criticized, with the relationships and acting being described as unconvincing and generic to the point of being parodic, while the complex themes and body-horror elements were generally viewed more favorably by critics, Brian Tallerico from RogerEbert.com called it "one of those early career horror entries in which the filmmakers don't quite nail the set-up or the landing, but the gooey center of the film works for those with a high tolerance for things that might make a majority of the population queasy." Phil Wheat from Nerdly had a slightly more positive takeaway after seeing the Frightfest 2015 screening: "Bite is strange and claustrophobic tale of sexuality, horror and bodily fluids recalls the best ofDavid Cronenberg, even echoing of Roman Polanski's Repulsion in the isolated madness of Casey's condition. And as such is unmissable" and Matt Boiselle from Dread Central stated that "Bite definitely has the chops to be the Fly of the new age and simply shouldn't be missed, especially if you're a gorehound on the prowl." Many audience members were apparently unprepared for the gruesome content of the film however, as Fantasia Film Festival co-director Mitch Davis said on Facebook, "I leave the BITE premiere for all of ten minutes and the following text lights up my phone: "2 people fainted. One girl is puking and another hit his head on stairs". Truth." Davis also had special Bite branded barf-bags handed out to the audience.
