Bite Me!

BITE ME!
Written and Directed by Brett Piper
Featuring Misty Mundae, Michael R. Thomas, Erika Smith,
John Fedele, Julian Wells, and Caitlin Ross
2004
E.I. Cinema
Review by: Andrew Shearer

I pretty much stopped reviewing E.I. Cinema's movies (aka Seduction Cinema) this year, after writing about practically everything they released from 1998 thru the beginning of 2004. The reason was simple...they stopped making their trademark comedies and began doing more serious stuff. I respect their decision to branch out, reach a wider audience and gain more respect, don't get me wrong. It's just that the newer stuff didn't quite have the same spirit as the old, and a lot of my favorite actors and directors moved on to other things (or seemingly dropped off the face of the earth).

When I first heard about Brett Piper's film BITE ME!, something sounded really familiar about it. I looked him up and realized I'd seen Piper's 1996 film THEY BITE and got it confused with BITE ME! (an honest mistake). But what really sold me was the trailer and the premise.

The plot of BITE ME! centers around a strip club called "GoGoSaurus", owned and operated by a dirty bastard named Ralph (played by the incomparable Michael R. Thomas). Ralph receives a special shipment of bio-engineered marijuana, but doesn't realize that the spiders inside the crate of weed have been affected by the chemicals, and soon the gross little critters are running amuck in his club! Then it's up to the strippers, Ralph, and a bungling exterminator to solve the problem, as the bloodsucking arachnids get bigger and multiply.

First things first, the plot is genius. E.I. Cinema sure has come a long way from filming naked girls in the woods (which they did in probably 10 of their older films), and THEY BITE! is a wonderful throwback to those old atomic monster scare films. Setting it in a strip club was an even smarter move, because now you've got a reason to have a cast full of gorgeous naked ladies (as opposed to the senseless, random acts of nudity the company is famous for). This film will fit in beautifully amongst the finest in late-night cable movies, believe me. It's highly entertaining, just well-done enough to be so bad that it's good. Really good.

Which brings me to the sets and the special fx. The filmmakers made great use of the space they had, creating the illusion of a large building with backstage rooms AND a creepy gross basement. I was impressed by the giant dinosaur out in front (from which the club gets its name) and how they further illustrated its size by taking characters inside it. If you remember the dinosaur statues in PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, this is the kind of thing I mean. And the spiders! Let us not forget the animated spiders that are our monsters in this film. They are very cheesily done, which I imagine was on purpose and that's a-okay with me. I couldn't tell if they were stop motion or computer-generated, which was pretty cool. They resemble something Tom Sullivan might have done, and I really dug watching them run around (and getting squashed). They did a great job with this aspect of the film, which was a pretty crucial element, but only served to add to the corny fun.

My favorite thing about BITE ME!, however, is the cast. The dialogue and characters are very well-written, but the actors really make the movie for me. To my delight, they jammed this film with just about every single one of my favorites from the E.I. Cinema rostor. The aforementioned Michael R. Thomas is totally energized as Ralph, spitting his lines out with the most sadistically perfect comic timing you could ask for, and John Fedele plays one of his most wacked-out roles to date as "Agent McCarthy" (saying much more about this guy would spoil the movie for you). But of course, the main attraction here are the strippers, played by Misty Mundae, Erika Smith, and Caitlin Ross. It's their movie, and they rock it...taking somewhat one-dimensional characters and completely owning them. As expected, Misty is the shit, and I really liked Caitlin's lazy, cool-as-hell delivery and Erika's sweet-but-stupid portrayal of the dancer who needs her glasses. But this film totally belongs to the amazing Julian Wells, whom I am constantly blown away by. She rattled SEXY AMERICAN IDLE all the way to the bank, and goes similarly all-out in BITE ME! as "Teresa Razzini", the tough-talking business woman. Her scenes in the bathroom will completely roll you out...she totally goes for it yet again. Julian Wells is the master! She rules, rounding out one of the best casts and best ensembles that E.I. Cinema has given us in quite some time.

Congrats, Brett Piper and company. You not only crafted one of the best B-movies out there, but in doing so, won this ex-E.I. Cinema fan back! Keep the laughs to a maximum and the sex sensible, and you'll never lose. And just for good measure, make sure Julian Wells is in everything you make from now on. Couldn't hurt.