I once saw a movie title Ankle Biters many years ago. It sported the hilarious, mantra-like tagline “3 Feet Tall, 2 Inch Fangs!” and is, as you may have guessed, about little people vampires. It’s really a horrible movie with low-grade production and low tier talent. I randomly and regretfully rented the flick on a weekday afternoon in high school to watch with my dearest friends while we ate Spaghetti-o’s and played board games.
THIS is not that Ankle Biters from 2002.
This is the story of professional hockey player, Sean (Zion Forrest Lee), who is forced into retirement after a brawl on the ice turns into manslaughter. He meets Laura (Marianthi Evans) and falls deeply in love. He plans to propose during a getaway at his lake house, where he invites Laura and her four daughters: Violet, Rosalee, Lily, and Dahlia (played by actual sisters of the same names). The daughters are skeptical of Sean’s intentions from the start, but solidified when they mistake a sex tape for mommy abuse and plot to take Sean out.
Previously titled Cherry Pickers, Ankle Biters (2021) was repackaged and retitled after two years, and it hits a different tone as you dive into the slow-burn mayhem that is the “dark comedy” thriller.
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Buy me a coffeeThe problem here is Ankle Biters is being touted as a dark comedy, though the comedy is nowhere to be seen. The tone is more in line with psychosexual thrillers on the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. Think Bad Influence (1990) and The Bedroom Window (1992) in quality and tone, with a sordid cast of shady characters scheming and plotting, except the shady characters are children and all the steamy parts are just two people in a loving relationship being kinky. The closest we get to comedy is the casting of Colin Mochrie (Who’s Line is it Anyway?), who is only funny in the awkwardness of his portrayal of police detective Morton.
The score harbors its own tonal issues, never quite matching the situation onscreen and often overtaking smaller moments with what sounds like a baby playing a xylophone. The climax has a weird kind of tribal bass beat that doesn’t mesh with anything we’ve heard prior, but it does lead into arguably the funniest shot in the film which, if I described it here, would not seem funny out-of-context. With comedy and drop kicks, it’s all about delivery.
The film has an airbrushed feel of perfection. Everything has a glossy sheen of Canadian-subsidized production. The result is a made-for-TV true crime reenactment flick that housewives watch while sipping box wine after the kids are put to bed. In this, however, it excels, and if that’s your kind of bag, then this is absolutely the movie for you.
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And truthfully, Ankle Biters has its moments of true skin-crawling madness. You ever hear that story of spiders crawling into your ear while you sleep and laying eggs? You want a close-up of what happens after? There’s the setup and payoff of a pin stuck in a green apple that mimics that feeling you get when Marv steps on a nail in Home Alone. Then there’s the final confrontation between Sean and the girls, full of slicing and dicing, all while the girls revel in his torment.
There’s absolutely nothing to suggest the girls aren’t spoiled little a-holes from the start, and this is actually a shining inclusion of Ankle Biters. Despite their lack of experience (except Lily Ann Reid, who has quite an acting resume), the sisters are chilling in their methodical torment of Sean. It’s to the point of psychotic when their babysitter-for-the-night, and Sean’s friend, Matia, is deemed target for their destruction.
The only issue here is that everyone treats the girls like they’re not antisocial brats when, as an audience, we’ve seen nothing to suggest otherwise. The only exception being Dahlia, who seems somewhat scared of her sisters, but this culminates to nothing as she’s a willing participant of the ensuing chaos. This is a problem with writing, not performance, and ultimately what stands in the way of Ankle Biters being a somewhat fun, original ride.
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And for this, I return to the genre label of “dark comedy.”
Writer/director Bennet De Brabandere has executed a disconcerting lake house thriller thinking it’s in some way comedic. It is with that intention that Brabandere misses the mark. If he had recognized the potential of his original idea and gone in the vein of The Bad Seed (1956) and The Omen (1976), Ankle Biters would really be a stunner. Instead, he keeps the mood light. His adult characters are all dealing with dark, deep stuff, but they lack the depth to be believable in their portrayals. The girls pull dangerous pranks with solid escalation, but otherwise are given little to do other than glare between bits of “we don’t like Sean” dialogue. If he leaned into those aspects of his original idea, Ankle Biters could have been a truly chilling horror tale.
It’s a missed opportunity of the great premise set up, but it does exemplify that Brabandere has the chops – now he just needs the execution.
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With the flaws, Ankle Biters is an amusing watch that will be enjoyable to some, terrible to others, but mostly hitting in the middle. In a world where Brabandere is gunning for an Ankle Biters 2 (based on the end credits subtitled Son of Ankle Biter which, I realize while typing this, could be another attempt at comedy), he needs to pick a lane for his vision to be realized. Throwing in my vote: steer clear of the comedy. Go horror. All in.
Ankle Biters is available to watch now on VOD/DVD via Dark Star Pictures.
To me, this just sounds like feminist porn. The plot is a thinly-veiled excuse to watch some girls kill a man and get away with it. I assume the intended audience is feminists, so they probably find this funny. Reverse the genders (boys killing their dad’s new girlfriend), and a movie like this would never be made, let alone considered a comedy.