FROM its very opening scene, Little Bites sets a truly sinister tone that then gnaws away at us through an eerie gloom for the next hour and 40 minutes.
Mindy (Krsy Fox), a young weary widow who seems to carry the weight of the whole world on her shoulders, sits at her bedside, looking physically drained and forlorn, when a menacing bell rings out through the darkness.
Physically and emotionally spent, Mindy makes her way to the basement — the kind of dark and calamitous place where nothing good ever came of such a journey in a horror movie. Here, an ancient vampiric monster, with a mournful yet imposing voice, demands to be fed.
New to Shudder, Little Bites tells the frightening tale of a vulnerable mother’s desperate attempt to protect her 10-year-old daughter (Elizabeth Phoenix Caro), by allowing a fiendish parasitic demon, named Agyar (Jon Sklaroff), to slowly eat her alive.
Agyar, who comes off like a second cousin to Count Orlok or Shakespeare’s Shylock, snacks away on Mindy with perverse glee. Her own mother, played by Bonnie Aarons, of The Nun fame, is looking after her granddaughter, and is quick, at every turn, to remind Mindy just how bad a mother she is.
Alone, and consumed by feelings of guilt, shame, and hopelessness, it is only when child protection services send Sonya Whitfield, played by dame of horror Barbara Crampton, to investigate, that Mindy finally finds the courage to fight back by changing her unwelcome guest’s unhealthy diet.
With themes of addiction, depression, and the day to day difficulties of being a single parent, Little Bites, directed by Spider One, is a dark and twisted delight with strong performances from an impeccable cast. It plays out like a cross between Requiem for a Dream and Let The Right One In, and leaves us with plenty to gorge on.
(4/5)
