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BITE: A BRILLIANT CHRISTIAN ALLEGORY AGAINST FORNICATION
by Thomas M. Sipos,
managing editor. [July 8, 2017]
[HollywoodInvestigator.com] I assume that
Bite (2015) was a mistake. The film's director (Chad Archibald)
and writer (Jayme Leforest -- is that a woman?) couldn't have known
what they were making. This is a Canadian horror film,
after all, and those Canuks are even more
politically correct than anyone in Manhattan or Hollywood. So
how is it that Archibald and Leforest have created a Christian
conservative allegory? A horror film that not only condemns
fornication and adultery, but primarily blames the woman?
Casey (Elma Begovic) is engaged to
marry Jared (Jordan Gray). But that doesn't mean he owns
her or that she stops being a Strong Independent Woman. This is a
post-patriarchal world. And so, though the wedding is but a week
away, Casey flies off with Jill and Kristen (Annette Wozniak and
Denise Yuen), for a "girls only" tropical paradise vacation.
Now, cynics in the manosphere contend
that when women travel alone, or with just their girlfriends, to
exotic foreign lands, it's to "hook up" with exotic foreign men for
some hot, anonymous sex (i.e., to fornicate), far from judgmental
eyes back home. And Casey does not disappoint. She gets drunk and
hooks up with "Mao" (Daniel Klimitz), a random beach bum. She also gets bitten by a bug while swimming in a lagoon.
Hence the film's title, Bite.
Casey returns to Canada where she
contemplates her sexual infidelity, feeling guilty, fretting that
she's not ready to marry Jared, and yakking about it all to her
girlfriends. Meanwhile, the bite festers. Pus oozes from it. A rash
spreads across Casey's body. She aches and grows nauseous. Hair and
fingernails shed. Eventually she transforms into, well, not exactly
a giant fly. But Bite
does seem inspired by David Cronenberg's The
Fly (1986).
Thus does the insect bite, and its
resultant disease, work as a metaphor for Casey's sexual sin.
And for the sins of others. Jared is
a religious conservative (like his mother) and apparently a virgin.
Tired of waiting, Casey seduces Jared. Alas, her infected region
breaks open during their sex act, covering Jared's hand with pus.
Their fornication has now infected Jared.
In
Monsters from the Id, traditional Catholic author E. Michael
Jones argues that horror stories are essentially about sinners
(especially sexual sinners) who suffer remorse without repentance.
Casey regrets her infidelity, but without repenting, or even
acknowledging the sin. It was a mistake. It was unhealthy for the
relationship. It is not who she is. It's anything but a sin.
And because she fails to repent, her sin manifests in horror.
Sure, Jill encouraged Casey's heavy
drinking, and then arranged for her illicit tryst with Mao, even
recording it on a cell phone. Jill plans to show the video to Jared
and break up Casey's wedding. Jill wants Jared for herself.
Having seen the video, Casey exclaims
to Jill, "You let that happen to me!"
But despite her refusal to accept
blame or responsibility, this does not absolve Casey's infidelity.
Why would she vacation without her fiance? Isn't it
normal for couples soon-to-marry to travel together? Why
does Casey dance with other men? Why allow herself to get drunk?
(For plausible denial?) Why hover so near to opportunities for
infidelity, if, in the back of her mind, she isn't eager for a
taste? Like an alcoholic who just wants to smell the liquor, like an
overeater who just wants to look at the cake, Casey wants more than
a scent or a peek. She wants a bite.
This is why it doesn't matter if
Casey became infected before her tryst with Mao. She had
already committed adultery in her heart. Scenes from her vacation
video are presented in a nonlinear sequence throughout Bite,
so we learn about her actions piecemeal. But it's clear that she was
already flirting with Mao, making googly eyes at him, before
she went to the lagoon. Indeed, it was Mao who
suggested that Casey visit the lagoon. Had she ignored him, she
wouldn't have been bitten.
Despite being a Jewish atheist, David
Cronenberg's early horror films correlate with Jones's Catholic
interpretive paradigm. Sexual sin creates horror. Indeed, Bite
seems inspired not only by The
Fly, but by other works from Archibald's fellow Canadian
filmmaker. In Cronenberg's
Shivers (1975), sexual promiscuity spreads a parasite throughout
a high-rise condo, turning everyone (even small children) into
sex-crazed rapists. In The
Brood (1979), a divorcee's rage (divorce is a sin,
remember?) causes monsters to sprout from her body. In his 1983
essay, "Cronenberg:
A Dissenting View," film critic Robin Wood called Cronenberg's
sexual politics "reactionary." Jones might add that that's what
effective horror requires.
We live in a fallen world and Satan
has many helpers. Jill is every woman's toxic girlfriend, hissing
discontent and discord. Like the serpent to Eve, feigning
friendship, Jill whispers doubt into Casey's ear, undermining her
commitment to Jared. "He's ready. But honey, you're not ready."
Kristen is another toxic girlfriend,
undermining Jared by advising Casey, "Seriously sweetie, you
need to sit Jared down, tell him this workaholic act needs to stop."
Jared is honorable, handsome, loyal, and successful. He works hard
to make a nice life for Casey. When a woman lands such a catch, you
can be sure her girlfriends will be there to find fault, subverting
and sabotaging the relationship.
Jill shows the video of Casey's
infidelity to Jared, then uses his sudden heartbreak to "seal the
deal" by seducing him. But during their sex act, they vomit on each
other. The monstrously transformed Casey's high-pitched scream
provokes this, but their barfing still works as a metaphor for their
fornication. As with Eve biting into the fruit, Casey's initial sin
has sparked a chain reaction of sin.
Bite makes token attempts at political correctness. Jared's
mother (Lawrene Denkers) is a judgmental religious conservative,
with traditional views about a woman's role. Berating Casey's
domestic skills, Mrs. Kennedy laments, "A woman doesn't run out
of detergent." She later snaps at Casey, "I asked you for
one thing. Do not soil my son out of wedlock."
Mrs. Kennedy is so straight-laced,
maybe she's intended as a PC swipe at "religious hypocrisy"? But Bite
offers no instances of her hypocrisy and her judgments are accurate.
When she learns that Casey is pregnant, she accuses, "I know
that is not my son's child in you." And she's right.
If Mrs. Kennedy is sour and
suspicious (aren't most movie Christians?), she has good reason. She
herself is a victim of her ex-husband's adultery, as she reminds
Jared. Jared insists that Casey is different, but his religious
conservative mom is right. Casey is a skank. Mrs. Kennedy is also
right to try and evict Casey, whose monstrous transformation kills
the innocent. As with the Fall, the effects and injuries of sin
extend beyond the sinner.
After everyone is dead, fresh bugs
burst from Jared's corpse. In the final scene, two young woman are
jogging in Canada, discussing one woman's upcoming trip to the
tropical paradise of Costa Rica. We don't know if she plans to
travel alone, or how she hopes to enjoy herself down there. But a
bug bites her leg.
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