John’s Horror Corner: They Bite (1995)

FYI, I basically can’t find ANY image stills from this movie online. Sorry about that.  It’s not as bad as the DVD cover suggests–but it’s bad.

MY CALL:  This movie is basically smut horror; like a 90s Roger Corman release.  It’s completely tasteless, like the majority of non-franchise 80s horror, and serves as an excuse for teenagers to see breasts and gore in one convenient stop.  Despite its smuttiness, at least we see the monsters and some gore at an appropriate frequency.  This is like a poor man’s Humanoids from the Deep with more breasts.  [Eh…C-]  IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH:  The only suggestions I have are for those who seek more flicks featuring monster rape.  For example, Humanoids from the Deep (1980), Breeders (1986) and Chillerama (2011).  There are others, but these flicks make more of a theme of it all and really celebrate the monster rape category.

I actually watched this assuming it was an 80s horror movie.  Much to my surprise it spawned from the mid 90s.  Opening in Black’s Island, Florida, a sleazy photographer is turning a swimsuit photo shoot into a raunchy shoot when his model is suddenly attacked by some Creature from the Black Lagoon lookalike.  Probably just because her breasts were bare, the creature takes her on a playfully deadly dunkfest before killing her off.

As this flick painfully presses on we are introduced to a cheap crew of pornographers including producer Darryl (porn star Ron Jeremy; Return to the Class of Nuke-em High; Chillerama) and a group of underage drinkers who have a run-in with a guy in a dumb rubber suit—I mean…a sea monster.  The town locals are well aware of the pornographic goings on and have everything from city petitions to soul-saving ministers approaching them.  Evidently the true message in this film comes to the defense of pornographers’ rights.

The pornographers stumble across Ichthyologist Mel (Donna Frotscher; no other credits) and learn about the fish people and decide to double dip; they produce the “Attack of the Fish F!@#$” while investigating the “real” fish people for some profitable means.

In the middle of a monster rape scene complete with ambiguous life-draining tentacles, the smuttiness somehow picks up yet more when random witness and  beachgoer Katie (Playboy Playmate Susie Owens) is abducted by a sea monster’s chest-vagina and becomes a monster herself with a toothy-mawed crotch hungry for…well, you know.  Sadly, this exploitative bit was the best made scene in the entire movie by a landslide—not that it says a whole lot.  [If you happen to be a fan of monster-vaginas then you should turn to Tokyo Gore Police, Xtro or Teeth.]  Then porn starlet Tammy (Christina Veronica; The Girlfriend from Hell) gets it on with a dirty reverend before the horror Gods smite that dirty preacher via fish monster death.  With all of the classiness of Piranha 3D and Piranha 3DD, there’s even a wet t-shirt contest that turns into a strip-off and then a catfight.

Of course, all this smut stacks up to prepare us for the finale land invasion of the sea monsters.  I’ll offer one compliment to this movie now, and that’s that there seems to be more than one monster design.  Not sure why there would be different monster varieties, but it’s nice to see.  Some have crustacean claws instead of clawed hands, or toothy humanoid mouths as opposed to more tentacle-rich muzzles.

The ending:  A lame telepathy scene reveals that these fish monsters were specimens in the care of some slightly more human fish people aliens who return to space, for no apparent reason whatsoever, in their stingray-shaped ship.

This movie is for adventurous horror fans who are unswayed by monster rape.