BITE ME!

Produced by Mike Raso
Directed and Written by Brett Piper
Director of Photography - M. A. Morales

Trix - Erica Smith
Crystal/Iris - Misty Mundae
Teresa - Julian Wells
Buzz - Rob Monkiewicz
Ralph - Michael R. Thomas
Myles McCarthy - John Fedele

When it comes time to review Brett Piper's directorial efforts, I must sound like a broken record constantly repeating Piper's praises regarding his family-friendly approach to horror. I don't mean Piper makes movies geared towards children, just that his movies all have the same good-natured atmosphere that a responsible parent should look for when trying to baptize their adolescent children in the water's of horror cinema. Piper's movies aren't meant to disturb to bestow nightmares onto their audience, Piper's movies are meant to provide the essentials required by the formula (gore, jumps, nudity, etc…) and, more importantly, keep the audience entertained. Piper's newest, BITE ME!, is another example in his lengthy career as to why he's the most consistently entertaining director working in low-budget horror.

If you follow Piper's work, or at least have a basic knowledge of his movies, you should understand where I'm coming from. There are trends that emerge in Piper's movies. Hallmarks that, like Hitchcock's films before him, signify a Brett Piper film. Strong female characters. Witty dialogue. Breezy, light atmosphere. On-set creature effects and stop motion. And a hero that's all chin and courage. Sure, the movies are all formula in nature, but Piper possesses such a sure hand at his economical style of moviemaking that all the elements work together to create a movie that can't help but be likable in a goofy, nostalgic sort of way.

BITE ME! is the first creature-feature production from Piper where he trades in his Harryhausen stop-motion effects for less time consuming computer animation. In another of Piper's arachnid-gone-wild productions, ARACHNIA, Piper remained true to his hands-on old-school approach and shot his spider puppets one frame at a time. The stop-motion gave ARACHNIA a certain cheesy charm shared with other, older titles like THE GATE or CLASH OF THE TITANS. It's that charm that gives Piper's work their defining character. It illustrates the care Piper takes to make the best movie possible. Piper is like a sculptor working his chisel, taking care that ever frame shot, or every niche hammered, is a personal reflection of what inspired the artist. With BITE ME!, Piper finally caves to modern conceit and animates his creatures electronically. Gone is that sense of nostalgia, replaced by sad, soulless computer effects that distract from the action and reflect the budget constraints instead of the director's love of filmmaking.

The change in approach is most likely due to Piper's current employers, eI Cinema, owners of the popular Seduction Cinema and Shock-O-Rama line of videos featuring the likes of Misty Mundae, Ruby LaRocca, and Darian Cain. This doesn't mean that eI is asking Piper to turn out shoddy work, which BITE ME! certainly isn't, just that there are time constraints involved, deadlines to be met. Computer effects are more time-effective when it comes to post-production. They ring hollow for the audience, but save money for the financiers.

The animated spiders aren't the only things Piper changes up. His chin-and-courage hero, played in nearly all recent Piper productions from ARACHNIA and PSYCHOLPS to eI's recent SCREAMING DEAD by stoic Rob Monkiewicz, is now a dimwitted stoner. The strong female characters are now dimwitted strippers. In case you haven't guessed by now, BITE ME! is a comedy (and not as dimwitted and I might have led you to believe). It's the first straight comedy I've seen from Piper, and at first glance one would assume Piper is selling out for the lowest common denominator that makes most post AMERICAN PIE/SOMETHING ABOUT MARY comedies so blandly interchangeable. Fortunately, Piper is able to retain those winning elements that set his films head and shoulders above his low-budget contemporaries, his dialogue, characterization, and atmosphere.

Working with eI gives Piper access to the company's biggest assets, the nubile starlets. It's a win-win situation. The ladies, like the previously mentioned Misty Mundae, as well as recent breakout Julian Wells, are given opportunities to do something more than ham it up and show their breasts. But fans of the actresses' more risqué work won't be disappointed, there's still plenty of skin. The girls, after all, are playing strippers. Just don't go looking for the usual lesbian sex that dominates many of eI's girl-heavy titles.

Misty and gang dance in the Go-Go Saurus, a joint made memorable by the life-size Godzilla-like statue towering over the club. Run by the in-debt Ralph, the Go-Go Saurus is the kind of place where you walk out reeking of stale beer, cigarettes, mildew, and vanilla (that generic perfume the girls all seem to share). With dancers who are either too lazy (Misty Mundae), too stupid (Erica Smith), or too stoned to shake their moneymakers, it's no wonder Ralph is as far in the red as he is. Looking to buy him out is Teresa (Julian Wells), the bi-sexual wife of Ralph's dead partner. To subsidize his income, Ralph has taken to trafficking reefer through his back rooms. It's a bad batch that transforms the giant spiders.

The spiders themselves are an interesting lot, and completely original. Piper gives them human-like facial features, and they bloat-up like over-ripe ticks when they suck their victim's blood (fyi - there's plenty of gooey tick-popping which provides all the movies gore effects). The spiders release a venom into their victims which bring out the girls' darker sides, or at least their more inhibited sides, and this creates the movie's more humorous moments when the lazy become warmongers or the heterosexual turn lesbian.

There's never a dull moment in a Brett Piper movie, that's for certain. BITE ME! proves once again why he's a master at low-budget cinema, a one-man Roger Corman studio who knows that no budget doesn't mean no story or entertainment. Micro-cinema devotees will be doing themselves a favor by renting this, or any of Piper's other work, he knows how to tell a story and make it enjoyable. I'm proud to call myself a fan.

Correction from Brett Piper:

A co-worker kindly forwarded a copy of B-Independent's Bite Me! review to me (I'm writing back to the above e-mail address because I couldn't find any other contact information on your web site). While I was, as usual, gratified by the kind things B-Independent had to say about my work, I was amused and dismayed by your comments that I'd sold out by replacing old fashioned stop motion with CGI. There is absolutely no CGI in Bite Me! Every last bug antic was created the old fashioned Harryhausen way. It's flattering that the stop-motion was fluid enough to convince you it was CGI, but gee, "sad, soulless effects"? I kind of thought they were fun.

Thanks again and keep up the good work.

Shock-O-Rama
EI Cinema
Seduction Cinema

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