©Millman Productions
As a forewarning, there are heavy spoilers ahead for the film “Byte.”.
Did you ever think you’d live in a world where an app that Amazon Prime ships you werewolf blood would exist? Did you even know it did? Probably not… “BYTE” is a 2024 horror film directed by Eddie Lengyel that opens with a woman running for her life while screaming as if she were paid to do it. As we see her flee, we also witness her being followed by a hairy wolf-like monster. After a few more shots of her running, she finds shelter in a garage. As she hides in the back behind a vehicle, the owner of the garage comes to check out what the noise was. As he searches the garage, the werewolf surprise attacks him and slashes him to death. We see parts of his arms flying onto the screen, intercut between blood splattering on the side of the car. The werewolf then flees the scene, and just as our character lets out a huge sigh of relief, a werewolf who’s been hiding in the shadows next to her attacks and seemingly kills her. This opening becomes entirely irrelevant to the rest of the film until the VERY end outside of showcasing the only true gore that the film has to offer.
This leads into the biggest issue with the film: there really isn’t a lot that occurs in its 90-minute runtime until the last 25ish minutes. They already have shown off the design of their werewolf (which isn’t too bad) and what it does with slashing necks and bodies; in fact, the opening is the most gruesome moment the film has to offer, and from there, you can’t hold the same level of interest. And with the clear-as-day sequences with the titular werewolf, you have no suspense to build up. Which in a monster movie is a requirement when aiming for a horror movie like this. In the rest of the story of Jett and his three friends April (Kayden Bryce), Nora (Carlie Allen), and her boyfriend Damon (Stephen Nicholas Knight) on Halloween night hanging out, they learn that Jett has downloaded an app named “Byte” that claims to turn people into werewolves for 25 dollars. And because of consumerism, people, of course, buy this gimmick. As Jett explains this to the rest of the group, he gets a knock at the door and goes to check it out. Just outside his door is a taped-up Amazon Prime box with “werewolf blood” inside. The instructions say to go to a cemetery. Why? Nobody knows…) and perform a ritual by putting human blood and werewolf blood together in a cup, letting the app say some poorly edited ADR (audio recorded after the scene was shot and edited in) lines, and then drinking the blood. The four do this, and it does nothing. They all return to their homes, but Jett feels funny. We then cut to a random person that is clearly somewhere completely different from the rest of this film. We then watch as she gets hunted by the werewolf (presumably Jett, but they have already been pre-established, so maybe it’s just another attack somewhere else?).
The next morning, our two main female characters, April and Nora, decide to go to a local café to enjoy some breakfast, and Jett somehow just appears to sit and eat with them. How he knew they were there is beyond me and beyond what this film is wanting to explain. Jett, who is starving, eats a ton of food and then returns home. While at home, he gets a call from his boss and is asked to work an extra shift that night. After offering him double pay, Jett agrees. Jump to the university that our four characters attend, but only in three scenes in the entire film do we see April in class (with about six other classmates) learning about the Salem Witch Trials. After class, she talks to her professor about how much she enjoyed class. This entire scene is meant to introduce us to Professor Grey (Debbie Scaletta), who acts as exposition for this shallow plot that is held together by werewolf hairs. Later that night, Jett is at the bar and sees his ex-sneaky link, who was briefly mentioned earlier at the beginning when he told everyone else that he had slept with his best friend’s ex. She is here with another guy on a double date; the date goes well, and they agree to hang out again. Jett, watching from afar, rushes to the bathroom and splashes his face with water. His boss comes in to check on him but leaves him to his own devices. We then see Jett with big red eyes and fangs, confirming he is turning into a werewolf. The two men from the double date stumble around outside as a werewolf pops out of nowhere and kills them one by one. The following day, Damon goes to Nora’s house to talk to her and April as he theorizes that Jett could be a werewolf after the reports of the deaths are reported by the local news. April says she wants to give Jett a visit and find out before they go to the police about anything, but just before she can, we can watch as Jett kills his cat and eats it (all of this off-screen, of course). April shows up and talks with Jett about the deaths, and as she grabs a bottle of water from his refrigerator, she finds the skull of his cat, leaving her scared for her life. She goes back to her house to tell Damon and Nora what she found. April then goes back to the university and finds a book on werewolves.
Professor Grey sees her and asks why she’s taken an interest in the topic, explaining to her the issue with Jett. Professor Grey miraculously knows about a Professor Rader who may have a connection to this but tells April to leave it alone. That night, Professor Grey returns home, only to be visited by her good friend Larry (Larry DiBartolomeo), who is worried about her. Grey tells him to come back tomorrow for dinner, and as he returns to his car, he watches this hairy beast run by, jumping back out of his car to warn Grey. The werewolf kills him, followed by Grey. The rest of the film is about the three friends of Jett looking for Professor Rader as the downloads for Byte continue to rise as Jett kills his ex and her friend as they wait for an Uber to show up to their house. Eventually, they locate him and pay him a visit, only to find out that he had created the werewolves we see with a medical drug that had been used on his son to try and cure his cancer. The rest of the film takes place in this never-ending house of hallways as Professor Rader (Bill Schroeder) hunts down three characters as they try to figure out the cure to save Jett from being a werewolf forever. In the investigation, Damon is scratched and turned into a werewolf himself (and is killed rather quickly by Nora). The two almost escape, but Professor Rader tries to stop them from escaping; however, they are saved by the women from the beginning who is now being harvested for blood to ship out to the rest of the world by Professor Rader. The two escape and drive off only to wake up the next morning to see that the entire United States has reported werewolf sightings and that things are only beginning. The final shot of the film is of the women from the beginning now working on the app and delivering it to the world. Setting up a potential sequel.
If you are looking for a nonsensical creature feature that has an outlandish idea, “Byte” might be the perfect film to throw on one night and sit in the darkness with some popcorn, chowing down. However, if you’re looking for a film that has some unique creative decisions and pushes the genre further, I would suggest looking elsewhere. The film has a great costume for the werewolf but there are no transformation scenes, no clear violence, and little to no gore. For many horror fans, this may be a letdown–for me it was. The famous werewolf of legend is treated as a b-rate movie monster with little to no weight in the film. I wish they could have given the creature more weight and built up the horror more than they did. Give the cast some time to work on their line delivery and acting so they come across as more than hollow actors just working to make a quick dollar and sell the story, and work on establishing a more cohesive plot that doesn’t depend on the viewer to suspend their disbelief as much as they have. Overall. I was mostly disappointed with the final product and feel like another couple of drafts for the script could’ve helped the film greatly.
