Byte review
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Byte
Directed by Eddie Lengyel
Written by Eddie Lengyel
Starring Kayden Bryce, Marshall Vargas, Carlie Allen, Stephen Nichols Knight, Anthony Dain, Bill Schroeder and Cali Jacobs
Byte Review
There’s an unintentional moment at the end of Byte, that encapsulates the experience of watching it. A character receives a phone call and the name on the phone isn’t that of the person calling…it’s the name of the actress playing that person. At first blush you might dismiss it as an amateurish effort. How did they not notice this in editing? It’s not necessary to include a shot where you can see the front of the phone so clearly, after all.
Further thought will lead you to some more enjoyable places. An admiration for the do-it-yourself nature of independent horror. The actress calling is doing so on their real-life phone…programmed into the real phone used by the person answering. Sometimes movie magic is just as simple as using what you have the way it’s meant to be used. They certainly didn’t have it in the budget to replace the screen with a digital effect to clean up the error. Which would explain the film’s werewolf appearances that amount to an actor in a werewolf costume. Or, perhaps, they thought no one would notice. It’s not a deal breaker, of course. It’s a second of time that you need to pay attention to something as unimportant as the name on a call screen. Someone paying that close attention to your low budget werewolf movie has to be a positive sign.
The opening scene of Byte lets you know what you’re in for werewolf carnage wise. A wolfman is afoot and he claims two victims before the opening title. One kill is off-screen…the other is a quick throat slash. Blood splatter and already severed body parts. Most of the werewolf action in Byte amounts to a person being mauled either slightly out of frame or pre-covered in blood. Worse yet for werewolf lovers, transformations are limited to some red eyes before the full off-screen turn.
To be honest, the rules in Byte are hard to figure out. It appears that werewolves can shift back and forth at will. There is a full moon in the sky throughout the story…but we watch a character fail to change while the moon has long hung in the night sky. Our Full Moon Features are largely focused on the werewolf lore aspects of the movies we cover. Byte is fairly sloppy in its execution. So, what was that whole opening that talked about deeper positives found underneath first impressions about? I’m glad you asked.
Byte has some fun werewolf ideas. The villain’s entire endgame is to unleash a werewolf apocalypse on the world. A WEREWOLF APOCALYPSE! We aren’t meant to see what that looks like, obviously. As far as villainous plans go, however…it’s top notch. How our group of friends become exposed to the curse is another interesting idea. Jett (Marshall Vargas) is with his friends April (Karden Bryce), Nora (Carlie Allen) and Damon (Stephen Nicholas Knight) on Halloween. There happens to be a full moon, of course. Jett has an idea to liven up the party. It involves a cemetery, the ingestion of blood, and a ceremony passed on from an app he downloaded.
That might sound silly…and look…it is. It’s also new. Signing up for the app comes with your very own vile of wolf blood. Blood meant to be mixed with that of a human and consumed. Jett doesn’t hesitate to complete the ritual…and you can probably guess what happens next. When strange things start happening, April, Nora and Damon are left to discuss and investigate what’s become of Jett. They uncover something bigger than they could have ever expected. The investigation of the app leads them to a vast conspiracy they may be too late to stop.
It bares noting that we’ve talked before about small budget movies staying in their lane. Don’t write things you can’t pull off on camera. With its implied action and shoddy costume…you could safely assume that Byte is punching above its weight on vast conspiracies centered around a werewolf apocalypse. You’d be right…but for whatever reason it isn’t as noticeable in Byte. Its swings are all of the dialog variety…and those ideas feel fresh. Byte has its share of issues. It slows to a crawl on more than one occasion. At one point it cuts to the POV of a group of characters we haven’t been introduced to as if you sat on the remote while watching. It’s light on lore and lighter on werewolf fun. For all of its obvious faults…digging a little deeper reveals that ambition is not one of them.
Scare Value
Byte tries some new things. Warts and all that’s a respectable starting position. It also tries way too many things that it can’t pull off to any real affect. That’s the nature of this beast. There are far better werewolf movies to pop in during the full moon. Nevertheless, Byte earns some points for taking big swings. Even if they miss more often than not.
2/5
Byte Link
Streaming on Tubi
