You have to love Tubi, a goldmine of great films and entertaining trash. Sadly, it’s not available here in the UK. Unless you find a way to pretend you aren’t in the UK. Do that, it’s not too difficult, and a whole new world of entertainment becomes available to you. I have sourced many movies there, and browsing the site for something enjoyably silly has become one of my favourite things. It is often easier to find something worthwhile to watch on Tubi than it is to find something worthwhile on the many other streaming sites out there. Especially when you are as undemanding as I am.
Bite Me! was an immediate strong contender as I figured out what I was in the mood for last night. The plot summary mentioned an outbreak of bugs in a strip club and I figured it would be cheap, cheesy, and hopefully fun. I also saw that it starred Erin Brown (billed here under her more popular screen name, Misty Mundae), which I guessed would help the film skew towards a certain viewer demographic. I wasn’t wrong, although the end result is even sillier than I expected.
Written and directed by Brett Piper (who did this kind of thing before, albeit in a more straightforward manner), Bite Me! is surprisingly competent throughout, despite the very low-budget special effects and the limited acting range of most of the cast. Would I recommend it to everyone, or class it as some kind of forgotten gem from 20 years ago? Of course not, but it’s a decent enough mix of bugs trying to bite people and gratuitous nudity, without ever bringing one aspect to a halt in order to stay focused on the other.
Brown is okay in her role, not exactly being taxed and not showing much progression beyond the performances she was already used to giving. She does better than most though, delivering her performance in a simplistic and exaggerated way that still feels more subtle than some of the other main players. Sylvianne Chebance is good, although I may be being biased there, due to her being my favourite of the featured actresses. Julian Wells spends her scenes trying to chew up the scenery, Erika Smith is average, at best, and Michael R. Thomas plays his club owner character like someone who couldn’t even make the deleted scenes in Showgirls. Thankfully, Rob Monkiewicz helps out once he appears onscreen, playing an exterminator clearly influenced by John Goodman in Arachnophobia (although maybe that was just me projecting).
Nothing ultimately matters as the story unfolds, despite a plot strand that adds a gun-toting US agent to the mix, and I can see how some would desire more nudity while others might want more creature feature moments, but it’s surprisingly fun while it’s on. Disposable, immediately forgettable, laughably bad at times, but fun. And I would rather watch something as daft and unpretentious as this than watch some of the more polished, and more sanitized, slices of mediocrity that have made it into cinemas over the past couple of decades. If you disagree strongly with that sentiment . . . Bite Me!
4/10
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