Since first catching Titanic 2000 way back in 2000, I’ve always wanted to like EI Cinema releases more than they have allowed me to like them. The spirited tomfoolery in something like Titanic 2000, with its combination of laughable special effects, strong comedic performances and just-long-enough digressions into trou-dropping, made the EI label appear as though its releases had something new, campy and exciting to offer.  Unfortunately, they never really reclaimed the heights of my first, fun introduction to their studio, instead losing the balance they struck so effectively with Titanic 2000.  For a time, their movies seemed dangerously close to pornography, emphasizing more and more the T&A value, losing the strong, charismatic performances and undervaluing the strength of laughter to keep their work afloat.  Gladiator Eroticus was about the only movie I’d seen from them since 2000 that worked up a giggle, but even that spent at least ¾ of its running time with long lingering scenes of Sapphic delight. Not that I mind, but I thought I was watching a sexy comedy and not simply straight-up porn.

Fortunately, the Shock-O-Rama line of EI seems to be bringing back the fun, and special effects guru Brett Piper’s campy, goofy and sometimes rather gross Bite Me shows the writer/director in fine form, besting his previous EI effort The Screaming Dead by leaps and bounds. The key?  Keeping tongue firmly in cheek.

By playing fast and loose with the conventions of movies and TV shows from the Atomic Age, Piper brings to life a gaggle of nasty mutant spiders that sneak out of an infected crate of high grade contraband.  These stop-motion arachnids invade, of all places, a dinosaur-themed strip club run by a scurrilous, loudmouth owner (Michael R. Thomas in shouting mode) who employs the three most pathetic strippers in the world, (EI poster girl Misty Mundae, with Erika Smith and Caitlin Ross.) Add a bossy Mafiaso’s widow eyeing to shut down the strip club, (Wells, trying so hard to channel The Sopranos that James Gandolfini is in pain) a psycho special agent with facial ticks, (Fedele) a French, nymphomaniac bar maid, (Sylviane Chebance) and a lunk-headed exterminator, (Rob Monkiewicz) and what you have is an entertaining ensemble cast of over-actors in quirky roles going ten shades of beserk once the spiders break loose.  It’s a “beer and movie night” flick with plenty of gratuitous, if somewhat un-titillating nudity, a mad-cap tone, and a hilarious plot twist that finds spider victims not dying, but instead acting curiously aggressive thanks to their eight-legged friends’ bites.

Right from the get-go, you know Bite Me isn’t taking things seriously.  The opening credits parody just about any softcore movie you’ve seen since the early 90’s, oogling the body of Misty Mundae while she “dances” around a pole, yet never once does it try to be sexy.  Instead, Mundae with eyes hanging heavy, appears as if she’s about to fall asleep on stage, moving with as much sexual charisma as a doorknob. The tone set is a curious one – at first I thought we were actually seeing Mundae’s contempt for being asked to drop her gear YET AGAIN for a movie. Alas, in the next scene, Mundae comes into the girls’ dressing room post gig and complains about how bored she is (and, in one of the movie’s funniest moments, adds that she lacks “Stripper Tits,” acknowledging a bit of stretched casting.)

I’ve often wondered whether Misty Mundae could act. Other than acting like getting head from a female co-star is the most mind-shatteringly gratifying experience she’s ever had, I’ve not seen her do much in other EI movies.  In the behind the scenes extras on the disc, it’s explained that Mundae had no time to prepare for this role as she was a last-minute casting replacement.  Well, perhaps she should never be allowed to prepare, because in Bite Me, Mundae is the star EI always tries to make her.  First very funny as the theme-less, bored stripper Crystal, after being bit by one of Piper’s crazy looking arachnids, (in a shower scene, natch) Mundae channels her inner Rambo, waging war on the little buggers.  The testosterone-driven Mundae is very funny, showing genuine acting chops, and had they somehow worked in a final dance with Mundae in her aggressive new “character,” they could have closed off Crystal’s storyline about not having a theme, making Mundae’s performance even stronger.  Misty Mundae can act when she wants to, and her turn in Bite Me is proof.  I look forward to seeing her in upcoming works from inspired visualist Tony Marsiglia, another in-house talent that EI has smartly let do his own thing as they have with Piper.

It is a shame that most of the cast doesn’t quite reach Mundae’s level of inspired wackiness, but some still have strong moments.  Powered by some fun writing in their characters, fellow strippers Erika Smith (as the clutz Trix) and Caitlin Smith (as stoner stripper Amber) offer up some decent laughs. Oddly, though, Trix disappears without any mention as to what happened to her about midway through the movie! For their part, Rob Monkiewicz and Sylviane Chebance do fine, charismatic work as “Buzz” the Exterminator and Gina the bartender.  Alas, EI’s regular players John Fedele, Michael R. Thomas and Julian Wells never seem to rise above cookie-cutter portrayals of their comic book personas.  In Wells’ case, she’s partially held down by some horribly askew wardrobe that betrays the supposed savvy of her character, but Fedle is the most disappointing.  In the past, Fedele has been the best (non nude and writhing) part of many an EI release, but here he rarely reaches his usual level of likable mayhem.

Regardless, Piper has unleashed a fun movie that’s not too much worse off for its faults thanks to some fun details and moments.  With a strip club named Go-Go-Saurus, stop motion spiders that seem to attack in some oddly sexual ways (Wells’s Theresa gets nabbed in an “uncomfortable place,” while bartender Gina gets a massage from another and Crystal is tagged in the shower,) and a great scene where Buzz and Crystal exchange Urban myths, Bite Me moves fast, keeps the laughs coming and makes viewers squirm in all the right places.

Three and a half stars