I am by no means a horror movie junkie. That said, having hit my stride as a teen in the ’80s, the era that ushered in the multiplex boom, VHS rentals, and more cable channels than anyone could possibly need (okay, we needed them all), I watched a fair share of horror movies as a kid. This included the Holy Slasher Trinity (Michael, Jason, and Freddy) on VHS, Universal and Hammer films on UHF, and every B-movie on every channel I could get my hands on, long before the MST3K guys came along. Fortunately, there were more than enough movies around that I could avoid watching those with bugs at their core. I hate bugs. It’s a thing with me. From my youth to yesterday, I deftly avoided watching bug horror. Today, the streak is over thanks to Chad Archibald’s Bite.

Casey (Elma Begovic) is a pretty 20-something bride-to-be who, not too long before her nuptials to Jared (Jordan Gray), takes a bachelorette party trip to Costa Rica with her two best friends Jill and Kirsten (Annette Wozniak and Denise Yuen, respectively). While there, three major things occur: she reveals she’s not too sure she’s ready for marriage (for several reasons), she makes some poor decisions after partying too hard, and she gets bitten by a bug while swimming.

Upon returning home, Casey decides she is going to postpone the wedding. As she musters up the courage to have that talk with Jared, she takes ill, and that illness has some serious symptoms, including a heightened sense of hearing, a festering lesion on her leg, and an inability to keep down any food. As the days pass, Casey’s physical condition worsens, and her psychological condition suffers as a result. Eventually, she wonders exactly what it was that bit her and what that bite still has in store.

The good news (at least for me) is that, while Bite has a plot driven by bugginess, there is very little about it that’s buggy. The better news is that, overall, this is a pretty good film.

I was concerned at first, as the opening minutes of Bite give the impression it is a “found footage” horror film, a tired sub-genre on its last legs. Jill films the better part of the Costa Rica trip for posterity, and their time at the resort is only ever presented through her lens, but once the girls get home, that video is used for reference or flashback purposes only. Amen to that.

Abandoning the homemade footage and moving to a traditional presentation also allows the viewer to be mesmerized by Jeff Maher’s gorgeous cinematography. Horror is a genre that trades in shadows, and getting the right look is key to setting the proper mood. From the beginning of Casey’s demise, there’s a wonderful haze that looms like a pall over the film. As her condition worsens, Maher shifts his grey/blue/green hues to mostly gold. It’s an unsettling juxtaposition between the warm color scheme and the cold events.

The film also relies on the strength of Begovic, who makes her big-screen debut here. Her performance is terrific. Casey is a character dealing with stressors at multiple levels: a mystery illness, an engagement in doubt, and a suffocating future mother-in-law (who also happens to be her landlord) to name a few. Then there is the added complication of going through a horrific physical transformation as a result of that bite. Begovic manages it all wonderfully, but it’s the physical aspects of her performance that show off her talents the most. It’s something that could easily be overplayed, but her physicality is wonderfully subtle. (What’s most noticeable is how well Begovic performs when she’s alone; she has great skill at conveying thought and emotion through simple but effective facial and body movements.)

Other than the landlord-in-law (Lawrene Denkers) being far too much the caricature, the first half of the film is truly suspenseful stuff. The set-up works, Casey’s multi-layered emotional decline is gripping, and her early physical transformation is perfectly measured. I had memories of Honeymoon and Spring while watching the first half of Bite.

That second half, though, is rough. While Maher and Begovic’s respective work shines, the screenplay unravels at a dizzying pace. Dialogue is stilted, small scenes are either unnecessary or inexplicable, and character behavior goes from straining credulity to shattering that credulity completely. Director Archibald, who co-wrote the film with Jayme Laforest, abandons everything that made the first half work so well, spending the second half making plenty of amateur horror movie mistakes. It dampens the overall film, like when a clever little twist in the second half gets lost in all the madness and gore.

Bite might suffer from a shaky second half, but don’t hold that against the entire film.  This is a very good horror movie with enough overall strength—both in the first half as a whole and in Maher and Begovic’s contributions to the second half—to make it very much worth seeking out.

Bite makes its World Premiere on July 29th at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Julian Richings is one of those actors everyone recognizes, though when asked to name one of his many credits, it’s easy to draw a blank. This isn’t because he isn’t known for his excellent acting abilities, no one without talent could have made their way through so many film and TV projects without it, but when looking at Richings it’s clear he can also attribute some of his success to his unique semblance. With a long and chiseled face, and wiry frame, Richings fits the bill for almost any outsider a writer can dream up. Starring in the sci-fi horror film Ejecta, it would be easy to assume Richings was primarily cast for perhaps his literal alien-like look. And while those staring eyes and smothered nose are well-suited to the film, the majority of the film’s oomph lies in Richings’ delivery, and in fact the film’s most obvious flaw is that unfortunately, Richings isn’t the only one in this film. Otherwise Ejecta is a sharp-looking sci-fi with some jump-able moments, but with some especially embryonic characters.

The film’s director Chad Archibald (who has a host of other low-grade horror under his belt) and Matt Wiele are no strangers to Richings’ talents having worked with him before. Written by Tony Burgess (Pontypool, Septic Man), the film is split into two side by side timelines. The first is video footage of Bill Cassidy (Richings), astronomer and professed alien abductee, as interviewed by Joe Sullivan (Adam Seybold) at his secluded home. Brought to the country-side by Bill, Joe hopes for an inside scoop on the elusive Bill Cassidy and to hear more about his experiences with aliens as well as observe a coronal ejection set to occur that evening. Cassidy tells his abduction story, passionate with the insanity it has left in him, sleep-deprived and PTSD-stricken. Otherwise he says as little as possible, giving Joe long meaningful looks when asked outright questions. A clear ploy to delay until the real action begins. Cut to a dark dungeon-like room with dramatic lighting and large metal chair. Cassidy sits in this chair, locked to it. A couple of soliders taunt him and are quickly silenced by the resident boss-lady, Dr. Tobin (Lisa Houle). With no fanfare and a softly sweet voice that betrays just how sinister she must be, she asks Bill for his cooperation in answering questions about what happened earlier in the evening. Her demeanor giving away that she has no intentions of playing fair.

Thus begins a back and forth between seeing what has just occurred leading up to Cassidy’s capture and imprisonment, and his current state of torture by Dr. Tobin for information. If Richings fits the crazy-scientist style weirdo—or let’s be honest, it fits him—then it would be easy to consider him the most predictable and stock-like of Ejecta’s characters. But no, that top honor goes to Houle as Tobin, whose militant without a cause is the epitome of the unnecessarily angry villain. The film leads toward a slow convergence of its two story-lines—a well-forecasted inevitability—but anyone thinking that the film’s climax will bring with it some insight into the evil Dr. Tobin will be sorely disappointed. Dr. Tobin is the sort of villain who asks at the opening of her interrogation for her subject to cooperate but offers nothing in return. And of course the thing is, if she’d asked nicely, offered some explanation, she might just have gotten the info she wants. She might also have saved our rapidly waning interest.

Once it becomes clear Tobin won’t be cluing us into her own personal motivations for her erratic and crazy behavior (at one point she chooses to shoot one of her own soldiers), we cease to care that she’s doing any of this at all. Our curiosity for what actually happened that evening sustains us through a fair amount of the film, but once the obvious happens it’s hard not to think, “Ok, what else?” Tobin hardly questions Cassidy’s imperviousness to her torture, especially his response to an early device that literally drills holes in his head but doesn’t kill him. Her decision to ignore the obvious is baffling. But then again she has soldiers out exploring (displayed out on the screens in front of her) who report back to her with things like “this goo is inhuman” and “it’s gotta be extraterrestrial.”

Ok, Burgess. We get it. We’re watching an alien film. We sort of got that when you opened the film on Cassidy relaying his abduction story. Tobin seems to be the only one who doesn’t realize she’s very much in the middle of an alien film, however. Constantly she harrows on about “getting answers” but without any revealed motivation, or any revelations into who she works for—other than the usual vague reference to dealing with aliens back in the ’60s—it’s hard to know why she is doing any of this. Considering her quest for alien life, she is especially oblivious when she finally comes in contact with it. I’d say her character is one-dimensional except that would give her even a leg to stand on. She’s not even given especially good dialogue, monologuing at Cassidy for whole scenes and at one point saying, and I quote, “it’s just you, me, and the end of the world” and makes an especially bizarre comment about Cassidy “squealing like a dog, while they stuff you like a pig.” It’s supposed to be a threat, I guess, but I can’t get past the part where dogs don’t squeal, pigs do, in which case maybe a turkey would make for a better metaphor?

The visuals stand out, and were clearly meant to, as though the filmmakers always intended this one to be for snapshots not overall appeal. The music is beyond distracting, a constant techno thumping that starts at 11 and gives itself nowhere to build. The home video recording timeline is at many times very dark and hard to make out. Mostly it’s yet another found-footage style scenario where it’s really hard not to question why someone would be filming when their life is on the line.

There are elements of Ejecta that work, mostly that for at least a little under half the film it manages to pique curiosity and certainly has a florid visual aesthetic, but the distraction of enormous holes in the key characters keeps one from actual enjoyment of the film. If they’d angled to be more of a horror than a sci-fi, it would be easier to forgive. Chris Nolan and his ilk are proving audiences like smarter sci-fi and with something as outdone as alien films, the need is even greater to hold interest. Ejecta orbits close to amusing, but never lands.

In theaters and on VOD Friday Feb. 27th

The Drownsman stars Michelle Mylett as Madison, a young woman we know absolutely nothing about. Madison’s best friend Hannah (Caroline Korycki) just got engaged, and after accepting Hannah’s request to be maid of honour, Madison nearly drowns in an accident. Madison had a vision of a hulking, demonic-looking person locking her in a basement while drowning, and the hallucination now makes her deathly afraid of water. Director Chad Archibald establishes the severity of Madison’s fear by showing her cowering in her bedroom, sobbing because it’s raining outside. I wondered why Madison wasn’t afraid of crying, considering she’s covering herself in tears. I also wondered if Madison freaks out on a particularly humid day in case she starts sweating. Then I realized I was putting more thought into this movie than the writers ever did.

Unfortunately that rainy day also happened to be the day of Hannah’s wedding, and Hannah, now losing patience with her best friend’s behaviour, takes action. Hannah grabs two of Madison’s close friends (Gemma Bird Matheson & Sydney Kondruss) and a spiritual type (Clare Bastable) to contact the spirit haunting Madison and get it to leave. The whole thing is a hoax, though; Hannah’s doing it as a trick to convince Madison to get over her fear. Yet oddly enough this fake ceremony somehow does contact the evil spirit, the ghost of a serial killer whose MO was drowning women, and one by one everyone around Madison gets picked off by the titular villain.

The Drownsman can only travel through water, as it acts like a gateway to his “realm” (the shoddy basement in Madison’s vision) where he proceeds to drown his victims. Like everything else in the film, this brings up a lot of questions. Why does the Drownsman have to kill people in his basement? He can clearly exist in our world, as shown by how he appears in puddles or any pool of water, yet he continues to drag people kicking and screaming into his weird, undefined alternate dimension. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to drown them in the water he uses to travel to our world? And why, as we learn toward the climax of the film, does the Drownsman have a fear of fire? If someone tried to light him on fire, couldn’t he just use the water surrounding him to put it out? He wouldn’t even have to roll, just stop and drop.

I finished The Drownsman with plenty more questions, but sadly I don’t think I’ll ever get any answers. Some of the more basic questions are easy to figure out. This is a low budget, presumably straight to DVD horror film, so the awful acting, terrible dialogue and shoddy direction are all easy to understand. They’re expected to some degree. How a film with such a stupid premise made it past the development phase is something I can’t really figure out. I may have hated The Drownsman, but it’s not completely worthless. Whether it’s intentional or not, the scenes of characters flinching at the presence of water makes for some of the year’s funniest moments. I’ll give The Drownsman credit: it’s the only film I’ve seen where people cower in fear as someone next to them drinks from a bottle of water. There’s something of value there, even if I can’t figure out what it is exactly.