They Bite (1996)

To me, this movie is perfection.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Blistering performances.

Ambitious far beyond expectations, "They Bite" succeeds in spoofing not one, but two movie genres. The first half has at least a bunch of chuckles, squarely aimed at the adult film industry. The actors are likable, the acting is acceptable for this type production, and the nudity is not totally gratuitous. The second half is all about the fish monsters, with the sci-fi elements, and special effects surprisingly effective considering the minuscule budget. Just when you thought things couldn't get more outrageous, they do. The closest porno parody flick I could compare this to would be "The First Nudie Musical", which is a spoof of Broadway shows, and contains lots of nudity. In fact they both have the identical line spoken by their leading nude lady, "I am an actress" - MERK

This movie is obviously somewhat derivative of the 80's Roger Corman classic "Humanoids from the Deep". But then that movie back in its day was excoriated for being a derivative, sexed-up version of "Creature from the Black Lagoon". I kind of liked this just because it was a fun movie with a genuinely independent feel to it, not just another cynical effort to make an intentional "cult" movie (the 90's were lousy with such efforts by hacks like Jim Wynorski and David DeCouteau). The movie also anticipates the kind of 90's reflexive filmmaking represented by "Scream" in that the characters in the movie have themselves watched horror movies. A porn filmmaking crew in the movie become aware of an invasion of humanoid fish monsters (after their mail gets mixed up with that of a female marine biologist) and decide to take advantage of it by making an XXX movie-within-the-movie called "Invasion of the Fish F**kers". This movie kinda reminds of another pre-"Scream" 90's independent film called "There's Nothing Out There", and like that one it remains relegated to out-of-print VHS while any number of much lesser 90's Wynorski/DeCouteau-type crap flicks are available on DVD and Blu-Ray today.Brett Piper is an interesting filmmaker. He's decidedly "b-movie" with a long string of credits like "Draniac" or "The Screaming Dead", but he seems to have a genuine love of "b-movie" filmmaking rather than a cynical attitude of "let's make a cheap-ass 'cult' film with as little money as possible while laughing all the way to the bank." Obviously, there is a lot of nudity here by 90's softcore actresses, Cristina Veronica and Blake Pickett, and Playboy Playmate Susie Owens (who has an infamous vagina dentata scene, which was completely edited out of the "R-rated" version, but was actually completely irrelevant to the plot anyway, and was only grafted on at the behest of the producers). But this is the rare 90's exploitation movie that might actually be entertaining even WITHOUT the gratuitous female nudity. Interestingly, most recognizable "star" here is no doubt XXX actor Ron Jeremy (before he was regularly being cast in low-budget mainstream films). Thank god he keeps HIS clothes on though--I'd rather watch the girls being assaulted by scaly fish monsters!

A Z-movie that tries to homage the past winners of this kind of cheap movie, They bite was a little less than I hope for. Sure, there is a lot of skin showed by several different nice looking actresses, a really ridicolous monster fish (as it should be), better acting than you may think in such a production, a couple of really good ideas (like the vagina dentata of Susie Owens and the black and white trailer for Invasion of the Fish F****rs), Ron Jeremy making a porn movie, but perhaps not enough gore and sex to totally satisfy the viewer of such a crap movie. So, in the end, this is a not compeltely convincing parodia of a Z-movie from the Fifties, made to look one of those movies, that it could has been better

After the first five minutes you're probably thinking this is nothing but cheap smut and violent filth.You're basically right. but if you can handle this kind of movie then you should probably see it(although it is hard to find).Also anyone who is a fan of the old beach monster movies shown at drive ins in the 50's-60's will probably like this seeing as how it pays homage to movies of that sub genre like 'The Horror of Party Beach'.This is not a movie to take seriously, you should just have fun with it.