Love Bite (2012)
Certified: 18
Duration: 87 minutes
Directed by: Andy De Emmony
Starring: Jessica Szohr, Ed Speleers, Timothy Spall, Luke Pasqualino, Kierston Wareing, Imogen Toner, Robert Pugh, Paul Birchard, Adam Leese
KRS release
The Irish production can be easily described as a concoction of The Inbetweeners TV series, An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Last American Virgin (1982) and American Pie (1999), among a host of similar movies.
The characters act as obnoxiously as can be expected of them, with only Jamie resulting as sympathetic
This film is rough and crude and moves at a fast pace, providing perfect entertainment to an audience who wants a very different take on the howling-at-the-moon scenario.
Love Bite is set in Rainmouth, a town that gives a whole new definition to the term ‘dead’. The focus is on four teenagers/best buddies: Kev (Luke Pasqualino), Jamie (Ed Speleers), Brunbo (Robin Morrissey) and Spike (Daniel Kendrick). Of these, Jamie is still a virgin and he really wants to revise the situation.
The gang spends its time around the arcade shops, playing games, going on rides and trying to chat up girls. In comes Juliana (Jessica Szohr), a sexy American travel writer who catches Jamie’s eye.
Meanwhile, Sid (Timothy Spall), an obnoxious and over-the-top character, says he is a werewolf hunter. He claims that Juliana is one such beast and that she is behind the disappearances that have been plaguing the area in recent days. When Jamie learns that the werewolf is only hunting virgins, his search for sex takes on paramount priority.
Veteran TV director Andy de Emmony goes for the lowest-common-denominator laughs and is successful in getting a whole fang full of them. The characters act as obnoxiously as can be expected of them, with only Jamie resulting as sympathetic.
Speleers tackles the role of Jamie with a straight face and it is not difficult to like him: his character is the only one to have a hint of normalcy, even though he ends up falling in love with a woman who may or may not be a werewolf.
The rest of the cast, who play his friends, are lunatics who only serve to add some hilarity to the proceedings. Spall is as over-the-top as can be as the werewolf hunter and perfectly fits in the film. As expected, he puts the younger cast to shame as he hogs the screen.
The jokes come fast and quick with the werewolf aspect upping the equation about 30 minutes into the proceedings. The resulting film is more comedy than horror.
In its own manner, Love Bite deals with the same issues as Twilight: werewolves, sex and teenagers... it just does it in a delightfully hilarious and unrespectable manner.