Bite Me should be easy for a cult movie fan to like.  It’s got a fun premise: strippers are forced to fight mutated bugs that invade their strip club.  It features the numero-uno direct-to-video starlet in Misty Mundae.  It was made by people who love the genre and it has a sense of humor… and yet it still falls on its face. 

 

This reason Bite Me doesn’t work is because it never tries hard enough:  instead, it chooses to slop through its execution in a hurry and rely on the viewer’s good will towards schlock.  Brett Piper wrote, directed, co-produced, did the effects, etc. and he spread himself too thin.  His script relies heavily on stock characterizations (the sleazy club owner, the goofy exterminator, the wacko FBI agent) and an overabundance of talky, forced ‘comedic’ dialogue to cover for the budget-enforced lack of action. 

 

Piper’s direction is similarly slack, lacking the snazzy pacing and visual theatrics a good monster mash needs, and he lets his actors go off the deep end with histrionic mugging (John Fedele is particularly overbearing as the aforementioned FBI guy).  There are some fun old-school stop motion effects sprinkled throughout and a decent Harryhausen-style bug monster at the finale but there’s nothing interesting enough to counteract the overall lifeless tone of the movie.     

 

The one thing Bite Me does well is create a likeable, potentially interesting trio of heroines- ‘reluctant stripper’ Crystal (Misty Mundae), nearsighted burlesque enthusiast Trix (Erika Smith) and sarcastic pothead Amber (Caitlin Ross).  Mundae, Smith and Ross all do solid work and have fun with their screen time – Ross in particular has excellent, deadpan comic timing.  Unfortunately, they can’t overcome the frenetic mess they are buried in and their efforts get lost in the shuffle.

 

With a title like Bite Me, no one’s expecting a classic to reinvent the genre… but it’s fair to expect the movie to have the humor and spirit its title suggests.  Unfortunately, Bite Me is frustrating because it never capitalizes on its potential for cheap thrills.