Shudder Saturday: Little Bites (2024)

This isn't the first feature film from writer-director Spider One (aka Michael David Cummings, brother of Robert Bartleh Cummings, who you may know best as Rob Zombie), but it's the first feature from him that I've managed to see. That's no comment on the quality of his work. It's just my busy schedule. And, after this, I'm keen to check out his previous films, Allegoria and Bury The Bride (both also featuring his partner, Krsy Fox, in a lead role, as is the case here).

There's quite a simple plot here, but it's one loaded with plenty to dig into. Fox plays Mindy Vogel, a woman who appears to be in the middle of a bit of a crisis. Her young daughter, Alice (Elizabeth Phoenix Caro), has been living with Mindy's mother (Bonnie Aarons), but it's clear that Mindy wants to be capable enough in the role of mother to have her daughter back home with her. That's made difficult, however, by a monster that also resides with Mindy, and the monster uses Mindy as his main food supply. 

Small in scale but pleasantly full of ambition, Little Bites is another fine genre film that makes use of the tropes to examine and subvert something much more grounded. This time around it's what mothers will do to keep their children safe, but there's also some intriguing hints at how easy it is to stretch out holes in the safety nets of society, and how much more difficult things can be when you don't have the full, or any, support of close family members.

Fox is excellent in the main role, managing to be both weak and strong, held captive by a beast she chooses to placate in an ongoing attempt to keep her daughter as safe as possible. Jon Sklaroff cuts an impressive figure as that monster, helped by some excellent makeup work and an audio mix that allows his voice to cut through almost everything else onscreen. Despite not having too much screentime, both Caro and Aarons do well, and there's room for a couple of cameos from horror legends Barbara Crampton and Heather Langenkamp, who are both used brilliantly instead of, as can sometimes occur, just being asked to show their faces so that their names can be added to the cast list and used in the marketing.

This really surprised me with how much it seemed to layer throughout it. I had an idea of what I was getting into from seeing a very brief plot summary, but the monster at the heart of it is only really half of the equation. The other half, arguably the more interesting half, is the responsibility of parenthood. It's about the sacrifices made to keep children safe, it's about the toll that can be taken on your mental health as you keep gritting your teeth and doing what simply has to be done, and it's about knowing the right time to allow youngsters to be informed and see the full picture.

The ending is a slight disappointment, enough to knock a point or two off my final rating of the film, but I certainly recommend Little Bites to horror movie fans who don't mind a slow burn.

7/10

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The Nun II (2023)

Sometimes it is annoying to see a film that seems intent on playing out exactly as you think it will. I wasn’t a fan of The Nun, considering it a prime example of the worst content you sometimes get in modern horror movies, so I had very low expectations for The Nun II. As the end credits rolled, I tried to decide whether or not this was worse or better than the first film. Ultimately, I think it is on a par with it. That is not a good thing.

The plot is annoyingly simple. The demon nun is back, moving away from where she was supposedly defeated in the last movie, and potentially hiding in the body of some innocent pawn. Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) is tasked once again with facing off against the malevolent figure. She has a potential ally in young Debra (Storm Reid), and is also reunited with Maurice aka Frenchie (Jonus Bloquet).

Directed by Michael Chaves, who seems to be the person to go to when you want someone to helm a less-than-stellar entry into the extended Conjuring cinematic universe (having also given us The Curse Of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It), this is a prime example of how to mishandle atmosphere and scares. The script, written by Akela Cooper, Ian Goldberg, and Richard Naing, isn’t good, but the material is translated from page to screen with no idea of how to maximise the impact of any moments. There’s even one great potential scare, making use of magazines on a large stand, that is undermined by the mistiming of the jump scare that you know is due to come along towards the end of the sequence.

Farmiga does as well as she can, having to base her entire performance around the idea of looking worried while holding on to an inner strength, and both Reid and Bloquet just about manages to overcome the weak material given to them. Suzanne Bertish also manages to make at least some kind of impression while everyone else blends into one mass of potential victims to be terrorised by the scary nun (played once more by Bonnie Aarons, who again gives a commendable physical performance under the make-up).

While fumbled scares aren’t appreciated in a film supposedly designed to scare viewers, there’s something worse about how silly and careless the third act feels. The film becomes so ridiculous that every main beat becomes genuinely laughable when it’s supposed to be getting more intense. 

I racked my brain to think of any more positives, from the production design to the score. Sadly, nothing else managed to stand out in a good way. This is lazy, unscary, and completely pointless. I am already praying that we don’t get a third.

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Jakob's Wife (2021)

Barbara Crampton plays Anne Fedder, a woman who is married to Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden). Their marriage seems a bit stale, I think it's fair to say, and Anne has settled into a role that leaves her a bit (or a lot?) less satisfied than she should be. But that changes when she is bitten by a creature (Bonnie Aarons, working under a very impressive make up job). Anne may need to drink blood from others now, but she also has a confidence and aura that has been missing for many years. That changes her marriage, and not necessarily all for the worse.

Directed by Travis Stevens (who also helmed the very enjoyable The Girl On The Third Floor), and co-written by Stevens with Kathy Charles and Mark Steensland, Jakob's Wife is yet another fun film in a sub-genre that everyone assumes is dead until a fresh approach is presented. There are numerous elements and moments here that feel lifted from past vampire movies (e.g. how often have we seen someone be bitten and then try to satisfy their new urges with raw meat/blood from a butcher shop?), but the material is given a nice twist when the focus shifts to the state of the marriage between Anne and Jakob, using the bite itself as a metaphor for any big change made by a spouse that reinvigorates their mind and spirit.

It helps that the leads here are Crampton and Fessenden, with the former a particular boost to the production, considering I have been convinced for some time now that she has at least one bath full of blood a week to maintain her victory over the passage of time affecting us all. Crampton is fine while playing the more timid version of Anne, but she gets to have way more fun as her character blossoms. Fessenden is excellent, his character putting the pieces of a puzzle together while he wrestles with his conscience over the best way to move forward. Aarons gets to be the Nosferatu of this tale, and her physical presence is genuinely spooky and impressive. Nyisha Bell is a young woman who goes AWOL early on, and she does well in her role, and there's decent support from Sarah Lind and Mark Kelly, as well as a fun small turn from Robert Rusler.

Although never a film you would mistake for a mainstream studio horror movie, and I am not noting that here as any negative, Jakob's Wife is very well made throughout, from the visuals to the unintrusive score, by Tara Busch. There may be nothing here that stands out as being absolutely brilliant, aside from the core cast, but the script and direction are full of nice little touches, the pacing is pretty perfect, and the ending is deliciously dark and satisfying. What you have here is a good film that manages, thanks to the way it never once drops in quality, to become ever so slightly great. It's also interesting and fun enough to warrant more than one viewing, and I can easily see it becoming a film that some horror movie fans will choose to champion for the next few years. If it doesn't get the attention it deserves. So you can get ahead of the curve by giving it that attention now.

8/10

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The Nun (2018)

It’s very difficult for me to sit here and write a thorough review of The Nun. Not because I can’t find the right words for it. Not because my memory has failed me. Just because it’s pretty crap. Yes, The Nun is depressingly bad, not just because it’s a poor movie, but also because it’s probably still going to prove popular enough with mainstream audiences to lead to more movies just like it (this film itself coming along as a tangent from The Conjuring 2, of course).

Taissa Farmiga is Sister Irene, a young nun (trainee, so . . . trying to develop a habit?) who ends up taken along to a Romanian monastery by Father Burke (Demián Bichir). The monastery has become home to a supernatural force, one that has led to confusion, fear, and death, and it is up to Father Burke and Sister Irene to get to the bottom of things. There’s also a potentially helpful local lad, “Frenchie” (Jonas Bloquet), as well as a fleeting appearance by the Warrens (played, as ever, by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) to remind viewers of where this story came from.

If I could do a word-filled review that could essentially represent that meme of Robert Downey Jr making that exasperated face (you know the one, you know) then, trust me, I would. It's all it deserves, which is a real shame when you consider everyone involved.

First of all, Farmiga and Bichir aren't terrible in their lead roles, they just happen to be stuck in the middle of a terrible film. Bloquet may not be quite as good, but he does well enough, and Bonnie Aarons makes quite an impression once again, for it is she who portrays the evil nun.

Writer Gary Dauberman (who seems to be the go-to guy that James Wan likes to work with while establishing The Conjuring spin-offs) has a decent filmography. He gave us Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation, as well as having a hand in bringing It to the big screen. Perhaps he needs a group of people to be working with, for best results, or perhaps on this occasion he was too hampered by the path that Wan wanted this origin tale to travel along.

Corin Hardy directs, and does so without any sign of the imagination and heart he showed in his superb feature debut, The Hallow. There are some weak jump scares, a selection of dull CGI moments, and nothing to distract from the fact that most viewers, if familiar with The Conjuring 2 will at least have some idea of how things are going to end.

There's not any real reason why I should hate this as much as I do, but it's not often that I have such low expectations for any film and have none of them met. This doesn't even do the bare minimum I look for in a mainstream horror movie. Which shows how far removed I can sometimes be from the average cinema patron, with this currently being the biggest box office success of the CMU* so far.

3/10

*Conjuring Movie Universe

The Nun can be bought here.
Americans can get it here.