Really Awful Movies: Ep 50b – Bite

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Bite star Elma Begovic and director Chad Archibald discuss the new movie, Bite.

After a bachelorette party, an infected bug bite causes Casey (Begovic) to exhibit insect-like symptoms a la Gregor Samsor in Metamorphosis but with a twist.

According to IMDb, “Between her physical transformation and her wedding anxiety, Casey succumbs to her new instincts and begins creating a hive that not only houses her translucent eggs, but feeds on the flesh of others…”

There was a sold out screening in Montreal (Fantasia Fest) where barf bags were handed out and two people reportedly fainted.

Elma talks about moving to Toronto and the unconventional way she scored the lead role in this horror flick and what inspired her role’s ticks (physical ones, not the bugs) .

Director Chad Archibald’s fiancé’s sister returned from a Guatemalan trip and was overcome with random bug bites. And we learn that this spurred the film’s genesis. We also chat about how the icky effects for Bite were created.

For more, see this:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4264426/

Really Awful Movies: Ep 50 – The Apple

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In the 1979 Cannon Group musical mega-flop, The Apple, competing acts take to the stage in a song contest not unlike the Euro Vision one.

Anyway, a Canadian folk duo is robbed of their potential song contest win when BIM Records sabotages their performance with a high-pitched squeal from backstage (it’s folk music, so who would know?)

Soon though, the young Canadians are tempted in a Garden of Eden fashion (yep, that’s where the title’s derived, not the other Beatles’ Apple)

We find out that underhanded deals are being signed (hey, it’s the music business after all) and that in the far future (1994!) the music industry became so powerful and so indelibly linked to everyone’s very existence, that the label BIM has soared to basically Apple-like prominence in the zeitgeist (Apple Computers that is).

Guess nobody saw Napster coming.

In its one-star review, Slant said, “every song in the goddamned movie sucks.” Our slant is that there are a few good ones that’ll leave you humming for days, and that this disaster is pretty damn fun, with hilarious set-pieces and lost-in-translation elements (it was conceived as a Hebrew stage musical).

Please take a bite out of this Apple (and “don’t mind the maggots” to quote the Rolling Stones’ Shattered).

This is a fun, horribly misguided piece of cinema. And be sure to subscribe to the Really Awful Movies Podcast!

Really Awful Movies: Ep 49b – Travel and Horror

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Travel in horror. Your humble hosts are international men of mystery, between us having visited about 40 countries, including all over the States, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.

Tourism and horror are often paired. There’s the usual spring breakers getting lost on road trips domestically but also international backpackers running afoul of global mad men.

Why is this? Well, travelers don’t have their wits about them when they’re in vacation-mode and the experience can be fraught with difficulty because of language barriers, bureaucratic isuses, etc.

The most prominent tourism / vacation horror films are of course, Turistas, Tourist Trap and Hostel. In Awakened, tourists are being harvested for their organs. After nights in hotel bars, a group of victims have their drinks spiked and wake up on an island. In Airport Shuttle, AKA Shuttle (2008) victims think they’re en route to the hotel via that conveyance but something untoward happens.

We recorded this one outdoors, to get the feel being out and about and share our experiences in Italy, Thailand, Australia, New York City.