The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Byte (2024)
★★
USA. 2024.
Crew
Director/Screenplay – Eddie Lengyel, Producers – Eddie Lengyel & Marie Lengyel, Photography – Mick Kunz, Visual Effects – MK VFX, Makeup Effects – Jennifer Benavidez & Brad Stilwell, Werewolf Costume – Midnight Studios FX. Production Company – Millman Productions/Fright Teck Pictures/Ron Lee Productions.
Cast
Kayden Brice (April), Marshall Vargas (Jett), Carlie Allen (Nora), Stephen Nicholas Knight (Damon/Werewolf), Debbie Scaletta (Professor Gray), Bill Schroder (Professor Rader), Anthon Dain (Mark Bell), Tommy Francis (Steven Bell), Calli Jacobs (Traci Allen), Candela Orio (Heather), Amanda Yanzanny (Katie Monroe), Tiffany Dos Santos (Hybrid)
Plot
In Columbus, Ohio, four friends are partying on Halloween. Jett downloads a phone app that promises werewolf powers. It directs him to conduct a ceremony in the graveyard where he drinks a cup containing drops of each of their blood. Thereafter there are a series of killings of people around the area as though by a vicious animal. The rest of the group begin to wonder if Jett really has become a werewolf.
In the last few years, we have seen several films about cursed phone apps with the likes of Bedeviled (2016), Selfie from Hell (2018), You Die: Get the App, Then Die (2018), Countdown (2019) and Grimcutty (2022). Or just cursed or supernatural cellphones with efforts such as Hellphone (2007) and Mr Harrigan’s Phone (2022), as well as the Japanese One Missed Call (2003) and sequels.
Among these, Byte surely takes the cake for the outlandishness of its tagline “A group of college kids try to help their friend when he discovers a mysterious phone app that turns users into werewolves.” The surprise about such a premise is that the film plays the idea completely straight. My immediate thought is that it would be a gonzo comedy but no, everyone is playing it in straight-face and reacting as though the situation were perfectly serious.
Werewolf by telephone app
Byte is generally a competently made film. None of the performances end up letting the side down. Even the werewolf effects, usually the pitfall of many low-budget Werewolf Films, look surprisingly good. On the other hand, the straight treatment makes for a film that is fairly uninteresting – whenever the werewolf is not around and the film is just reliant on the characters debating about and dealing with the situation, Byte tends to drag.
Byte was the eighth film for director/writer Eddie Lengyel who had previously made the horror films Hellweek (2010), Scarred (2016), Voodoo Rising (2016), The Curse of Lilith Ratchet (2018), Lady Krampus (2018), The Sluagh Awakens (2022) and The Melon Heads: House of Crow (2024).
