‘Bite Me’ Review
Stars: Naomi McDougall Jones, Christian Coulson, Naomi Grossman, Annie Golden | Written by Naomi McDougall Jones | Directed by Naomi McDougall Jones, Meredith Edwards
After seeing the poster and reading up a little on Bite Me I was expecting a romantic comedy in the vein of Life After Beth or Warm Bodies – obviously replacing the zombies with vampires. But that’s not what Bite Me tries to be.
It’s a much more serious movie than I expected it to be. There is some comedy but things are kept straight for the most part and the romance between a vampire and a human is the main focus of the movie. It’s still not quite the movie that it mentions occasionally (Twilight) but it’s perhaps closer to this type of film.
Real-life vampire Sarah is due an audit, which turns out not so good for her and her vampire pals. At least when it comes to money, it does help her in another way though as she meets IRS agent James and the two fall in love.
There’s not really too much in the way of surprises with Bite Me and that’s typical of most romantic comedies really. You know where it’s heading, you probably know how it will end and you just want to enjoy the journey getting there. And I did for the most part with Bite Me. Naomi McDougall Jones is a great choice to play the lead role, Sarah. The role isn’t really about being a ‘vampire’, it’s not that type of movie, the characters are very real and Jones is just extremely likeable. Everything she does feels very natural too. I could see her going on to bigger things. As her love interest, Christian Coulson as James is also very likeable. And in a very rom-com-type of way they make a great couple and you want to see them get together. And in fairness, the filmmakers do a good job of not making it particularly too sickly sweet.
Horror fans will enjoy that Naomi Grossman, of American Horror Story fame, also has a substantial role too. Unfortunately, as well as she plays that role, I did not like the character at all. She is supposed to be somewhat annoying but it went too far for me.
If marketed to the right people, Bite Me will no doubt find its audience. But I don’t think that audience will ever be horror fans. This is not going to become some cult classic in the genre. This will be loved by romantic comedy fans much more. I understand the idea of the story is about being yourself and loving who you are, whatever that might be but, in reality, the characters did not need to be vampires. Swap them out for something less horror-centric and you’ve basically got the same movie.
I was never bored with Bite Me, it runs at a slick eighty minutes but it’s just far too formulaic and predictable for my liking. Two people, an unlikely couple, fall in love, they hit a few bumps in the road, some ups and downs and they end up together forever. You know the score. I’ll stick with the much more twisted and original horror versions of rom-coms.
Bite Me is out now in the US; and the film is released on digital download in the UK on February 15th, both courtesy of Adventure Kid and Blue Firefly Films.
