#34 - Bit (2019)

 

Bit (2019)

(dir. Brad Michael Elmore)

Laurel, a transgender girl fresh out of high school, moves from a small town in Oregon to Los Angeles where she intends to live with her brother. On her first night in the city she runs into a group of female vampires led by the charming and dangerous Duke, who offers her the opportunity to join them. Laurel has to decide between a glamorous and powerful life and her repulsion at having to drink blood to survive.

In many ways this is a pretty standard vampire story, but the feminist and transgender themes make it stand out. The vampires have one major rule - never turn a man, and I thought maybe this would be a point of conflict with Laurel joining, but the film never goes there. She brings it up once and Duke immediately dismisses it as a non-issue. They may be bloodsucking vampires, but at least they aren't TERFs! They also try to feed on creeps - rapists and internet trolls mostly - and are being hunted by a group of male alt-right vampire hunters.

I really liked this. It has a great aesthetic with the lighting and costumes and reminded me a bit of Bliss, another recent vampire film I loved. Awesome music too. James Paxton (Bill Paxton's son!) plays Laurel's brother and I like him a lot, even if he doesn't get to ham it up as much as he did on the last season of Agents of SHIELD. All the actors are excellent, and the characters have more depth than you might expect.

The last act of the film is unfortunately kind of weak compared to the rest. It becomes more of a typical vampire story - not in an awful way, but just less interesting than the setup was. It's also a little hokey sometimes, especially in a couple of flashback sequences, but it was never enough to really bother me. It makes a couple of joke references to the Twilight movies, but honestly it's not as far off from those as you might think. It's a trans and feminist take on the same idea, only much cooler and better. It has some flaws but overall I really enjoyed it.