| Comedy | MPAA:PG |
Jim Carrey is one of the hottest things around these days. Ace Ventura - big surprise, huge hit; The Mask - made for peanuts, another huge hit; Dumb and Dumber - well you get the idea. Batman Forever extended that winning streak to 4, and lets face it, even though Val Kilmer and Tommy Lee Jones are extremely successful actors in their own right, a lot of people went to see Carrey's Riddler. If you think Ace Ventura was a lucky break, you're right, but if you think he hasn't been working at this for a while, well you might be surprised. Check out the film Peggy Sue Got Married - Gee, that obnoxious guy looks like Jim Carrey! Or try this one.
Once Bitten stars Jim Carrey, Karen Kopins, Lauren Hutton, Cleavon Little, and some other folks not really worth mentioning right now. Jim is almost a loser, only his relationship with Karen saves him from that. They have one of those relationships that seem rare in High School, the kind that leads to marriage after college. The only possible problem their relationship might have is; Jim is a horny teenager, and Karen wants to wait. Jim has 2 loser friends, who talk him into sneaking into a singles bar to see if they can get lucky. His 2 loser friends manage to start a bar-fight, and get hauled of to jail. Jim, being only an 'almost loser', meets an attractive, older woman who spirits him out of the bar before the police arrive. The woman (Lauren Hutton), unbeknownst to Jim, is a vampire of sorts. She must bite a virgin 3 times (every so often) in order to keep her youth (which makes her either a succubus or incubus, but like I said in the intro to Love at First Bite, I don't know, and don't care). She came out to California to find her target this time (pretty dumb idea if you ask me), and it looks like she got lucky with this one. She brings him back to her place, where after biting his buttons, she gives him the first bite. He wakes up the next morning, sans pants, and wonders just how lucky he got, because for some reason he can't remember. Sometime later, she corners him in a dressing room, and gets her second bite in. Meanwhile, he starts feeling the effects of his vampire bites, and Karen notices some strange behavior. He starts dressing in black, wearing shades all the time, not eating much - and when he does - it's blood red raw meat. Finally, he starts losing his reflection in the mirror. At the holiday dance, Lauren and Karen fight for him in a 'dancing duel', which Karen just barely wins. She has checked with the owner of an occult bookshop about vampires, and talks his two friends into looking for the bite marks - on his inner thigh. They do this in the shower after gym class, leading the whole school into thinking - well, I think you can guess. Jim goes out later to try to find out why they did what they did, and the three of them see Lauren kidnap Karen. They rush to the rescue, only to get caught. Jim gets strapped into the ceremonial chair for his last bite, but Karen and the boys manage to drag him away. Lauren and her previous victims take off in pursuit. The 2 losers, not being of any interest to Lauren, strike up conversations with two young(?) attractive female vampires, who being excited about the whole affair, drop their clothes, and the 2 losers finally get lucky. So do Jim and Karen. After running all around the house and not finding a way out, they hide in a coffin and do 'it'. Jim's no longer a virgin, and Lauren, deprived of the third bite, starts getting old - real fast. She leaves the room, and Jim and Karen decide to do it again, only slower, and everyone but Lauren lives happily ever after.
Although I didn't mention him earlier, Cleavon Little plays Renfield to Lauren's Dracula. He's apparently a raging queen (one notch below Meshach Taylor's Hollywood Montrose in Mannequin), and is supposed to add more humor to the movie. I guess that's the job of the Renfield in each movie, but some just do it better than others. It's an OK film, but in truth, if it hadn't been cheap, I wouldn't have bought it. It is an interesting glance of an early Jim Carrey, back when he played normal people, and unlike Ahnuld, Jim can actually dance.