LITTLE BITES (2024)

New On Demand and digital download from RLJE Films and Shudder!
Directed/Written by Spider One.
Starring Krsy Fox, Jon Sklaroff, Elizabeth Caro, Barbara Crampton, Heather Langenkamp, Bonnie Aarons, Chaz Bono
Check out the trailer here!!

Krsy Fox plays Mindy, a woman struggling with motherhood after losing her husband. With her daughter staying at Mindy’s mothers for an extended period of time, Mindy begins a descent into madness and is haunted by a vampire named Agyar (Jon Sklaroff) who has taken refuge in her basement. Surviving by nibbling and sucking small amounts of blood from Mindy’s scarred body, Agyar threatens that he needs more blood to sustain his hunger and threatens to attack Mindy’s daughter Alice if she doesn’t provide it.

Hmmmmm. I don’t know about this one. I really loved the surreal and out of left field nature of Spider One’s first film ALLEGORIA, even though it had some problems involving the script. His follow up, BURY THE BRIDE was a total mess of a movie that felt rushed and unfocused. For his third film, Spider One seems to have focused a little more on a concrete story for the most part and while the ending left me scratching my head a bit, I feel it is his best film to date.

One thing that is evident in all three of Spider One’s films is that his partner Krsy Fox is a solid actress. In LITTLE BITES, she looks a lot like Jamie Lee Curtis, which is a good thing as the actress is always synonymous with decent horror. Fox plays the tormented mother Mindy pushed to the brink well in this film. She’s believable and sympathetic, and while it is a little annoying that Spider One has adopted the same act of casting his partner as the lead in all of his films, much like his brother Rob Zombie, at least Fox is an actress that can carry the heft of a complex character. There are a lot of slow and spaced out moments in the first half of LITTLE BITES that require a lot of patience to get through, but Fox is able to maintain this feeling of dread and make these moments watchable.

I really liked the scenes shared between Mindy and the vampire Agyer (Jon Sklaroff) and these seem to be the scenes worked on the most by both the cast and Spider One as the writer. Though Agyar is feeding off of Mindy, there is an intimacy to their relationship that shines through and really exemplifies the struggle and sacrifice of motherhood, a metaphor that is returned to over and again throughout the film. Agyar’s makeup is pretty strong, though it only appears to be a facial appliance with the rest of the vampire’s lithe body being simply the actor and some baggy clothes. I think the vamp would have been even more effective had there been more appliances used for Skarloff’s body, but I’m sure budget prohibited a lot of that. As is, these close moments, focused on Agyar’s face in heavy shadow, works.

There are a lot of script problems in LITTLE BITES that I just couldn’t ignore. In order for the story to proceed, Mindy has to make some really stupid decisions. Why does Mindy invite Alice to live with her again if the vampire himself told her that he would tear her apart as soon as she gets to the house? It makes no sense to put the child in danger like that. If this is a straightforward story and the story was up until a certain point in the film, this is an unbelievable decision on the part of a mother who has given up so much to protect her child.

But shit really goes sideways in the last act and I honestly don’t really know what to think of the final moments of LITTLE BITES. I think I understand what was going on. It has to do with standing up against fears and oppression in order to conquer them, but Spider One chooses to go vague in the final moments and the scene that occurs halfway through the credits, making me doubt if any of the stuff that occurred during the climax happened at all.

I liked a lot of LITTLE BITES. Spider One really does capture that feeling of dread and sorrow and ends up telling a flawed, but impactful story of the weight of motherhood. I also found the cameos from Barbara Crampton, Heather Langencamp, and especially Chaz Bono to be fun and extremely well played. And the film is filled with fun little moments lauding back to other famous horror films such as the Old Man’s arrival at the house in POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE. That scene in particular is well done while being a nice homage.

Still, Spider One just didn’t stick the landing with LITTLE BITES. While less flashy in an MTV video sense, Spider One has proved that he can be a solid filmmaker. Much more solid than his brother Rob Zombie. Still, I think he adds these ethereal plot threads and endings simply to avoid committing to the bit. I don’t mind trying something different, but the veerings into the abyss of madness and the surreal end up knee-capping what might have been a decent story. That’s what happened with LITTLE BITES. I think Spider One is a talented filmmaker and I look forward to seeing what he tries next.