Little Bites

There’s something about the title that brings to mind Goosebumps and that this film may have that teen bearing. That is dispelled early on when Mindy (Krsy Fox) has her arm bitten and her blood sucked by a creature called Agyar (Jon Sklaroff) which looks a bit like Nosferatu.

The presence of this creature in her home means that her daughter Alice (Elizabeth Phoenix Caro) is staying with her mother, who is none to happy. The reasons for this do become a clearer as the film progresses though there are still gaps.

What is clear is that Mindy is a widow, still grieving and mentally fragile. To complicate matters an encounter with an interfering acquaintance results in a visit from social services officer Sonya (Barbara Crampton). There are concerns about Alice’s absence but Mindy manages to wing it.

Written and directed by Spider One, Little Bites has a dense air of evil and dread about it as Mindy tries to find a solution to her problem. An encounter with a lonely man Paul (Chaz Bono) doesn’t meet requirements, though someone else does, temporarily sating Agyar.

It is also quite slow peppered with Agyar’s psychological torture of Mindy, plus long conversations some of which feel like padding, and it can sag and look fractured at times.

Fox is excellent as the still grieving mother desperate to look after her daughter and forced to go to extreme lengths. Less effective is Sklaroff as Agyar his attempt at imbuing the despicable with an element of suaveness not really coming off.

There’s little graphic violence and bloodletting being mostly off screen. But the viewer is presented with the unsettling image of a half-dressed Mindy and her hideously scarred body.

The ending is likely to disappoint on a number of levels as it leaves too many questions unanswered and poses one very obvious one.

Little Bites will be available on Shudder on 21 February 2025.