Review: Best to watch ‘Bite’ on an empty stomach (Includes first-hand account)
There are so many things that could go wrong on a vacation, it’s impossible to prepare against everything. But returning home is generally supposed to bring a sigh of relief. Even though it means coming back to the everyday stresses of life, the familiarity of these issues is a comfort. But the bliss of resuming a daily routine can be shattered by the lingering repercussions of any holiday mishaps. In Bite, those consequences are both emotional and physical, and well beyond anything for which anyone could have planned.
Casey (Elma Begovic) and her two best friends (Annette Wozniak and Denise Yuen) are celebrating her bachelorette party in Costa Rica, though they may have chosen too exotic a destination. In addition to being stung by some unknown water bug, Casey wakes up on the beach with no memory of what happened the night before. Going home only results in further confusion as she struggles to decide whether to tell her fiancé (Jordan Gray) about her blackout or worse, her doubts about their pending nuptials. To make matters worse, the small bite is growing and festering into an unmanageable infection threatening to take control of Casey’s already spiralling life.
Body horror and gross-out horror are sometimes interchangeable concepts. The horrible and disgusting things one can conceive to happen to a person, or to come out of them, is only limited by one’s imagination. Though the logic of this story’s transformation may not be detailed, it is undeniably disturbing. Casey’s physical alteration is extraordinarily unsettling as her body begins to secrete various vile substances before drastically evolving. The origins of her new appendages are unknown as they appear to be a mishmash of whatever seems to work best in a given situation versus imitating some other existing creature. Moreover, it’s difficult to overlook the fact that Casey never considers going to a doctor about even the initial infection, which clearly needed medical attention; instead she relies on the advice of friends and a helpline.
Yet once she’s in the throes of the transformation and there’s no turning back, it’s impossible not to be absorbed by the repellant minutiae of her new form and the foul domicile into which it turns her apartment. By the end neither Casey nor her former home are recognizable, both evolving into the nesting grounds for this foreign organism. As a metaphor for her emotions, it personifies how terrible she feels about everything and gives her further reason to shut out her loved ones and the rest of the world.
Director Chad Archibald appears to have a solid grasp on how to make his audience uncomfortable and possibly nauseated; however they’re unlikely to care about the fates of most of the characters since almost none of them has any agreeable qualities, including Casey. Unfortunately this means the viewers are left to go through the motions with the main character while never becoming invested in the tale’s outcome.
The film tied for the audience award’s silver prize for best Canadian feature at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival, sharing the honour with The Demolisher.
Director: Chad Archibald
Starring: Elma Begovic, Annette Wozniak and Jordan Gray
