A supposedly brilliant but bored veterinary clinic doctor, a man obsessed with the animal he hurt, and, of course, our animal, a giant bear-like werewolf, all make for an entertaining movie. Fear Itself episode, “Something with a Bite” is a never-before-seen episode. Ernest R. Dickerson, another Masters of Horror veteran, is in charge of the direction.
Fear Itself is a 13-episode anthology horror and suspense series created specifically for television. While the far more dramatic “Masters of Horror” series was a huge hit as a regular show and a popular rental product, the networks were keen to transfer some of that magic to prime-time television. We must first learn a little about its origin and history before we can review it.
The unofficial third season of Masters of Horror is Fear Itself. Because Showtime refused to fund a third season on their own, Lionsgate came in with a budget and an agreement to show the anthology series on NBC. The rest of the series was put on the NBC website all at once after the first eight episodes, then on DVD, before being fully deleted from the website.
Wendell Pierce plays Wilbur Orwell, a sluggish veterinarian who is good with animals but whose home life is not all it may be in Something with Bite. We get a glimpse of his family life right at the start. He is a subservient man with a shrewd wife who appears to be continually disappointed in him and a son who is a shrewd replier.
The show is not particularly gory, but it does provide a sense of nostalgia as well as a new perspective on classic werewolf flicks and legends. It is an episode that transports you back to a period when you would curl up under a blanket after the lights had gone out and watch horror movies and shows.
The Bite comes Bear-ing Gifts
Aside from The Beast Must Die, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, Kevin Grevioux from the Underworld movies, and, tragically, Bloodz vs. Wolves, “Something with Bite” is one of the few depictions of black werewolves (lupus Urbanus). Skinwalkers also, I believe, had a black character, but he didn’t do much. It was refreshing to see more variety in the werewolf trope or horror television. This episode’s take on werewolf lore is intriguing, and Landis injects enough humor into the script to keep it from becoming too dark to handle.
We start with a person getting killed by an unknown creature with giant paws which immediately cuts to the dripping of thick red jelly. It is a great way to imply gore while actively avoiding it. We move to Wilbur and his home life with the progression of the scene.
We get introduced to clumsy and bored Wilbur and his quick-witted son, along with his beautiful wife, who is definitely the boss lady of the house. She makes him change his jelly-smeared shirt, and we then follow him to the office. This scene shows the monotony of his job and maybe his brilliance as a vet. We see him diagnosing animals with quick accuracy despite his bored look and his lack of interest in the workings of the clinic.
Everything changes when a man brings an injured animal who had been trying to attack him. Wilbur gets bitten by the beast and faints while the werewolf is able to leave its misery and pass away. Due to his sheer size, the man and Wilbur’s assistant Mikayla think that it is a bear that they have encountered, but Wilbur disagrees. None of them know what the creature is when the assumed bear comes bearing gifts…the gift of its bite.
Post the bite, he starts to treat himself the way he would for any other animal bite. He bandages his hand and uses the bite kit to give himself an injection. Later that night, we see him in extreme discomfort while giving us a peek into his intimate life with his wife. He seems to be feeling more energized in the morning, but we see a shift in his pre-established routine. We can already see the effects of the werewolf bite with the heightened sense of smell. He didn’t like the smell of his donuts and even said hi to his son. Landis and Ernest Dickerson have cleverly set the stage for the rest of the episode as well by using the background narration of the news anchors.
He decides to finally take a look at the creature brought in yesterday and notices a bunch of anomalies. The beast not only had piercings, but it also had fillings in its teeth which is not common in animals at all. Just then, we hear a bit of a ruckus. We come face to face with the Dugdale duo, who are here to take their animal. Mr. Dougdale almost says son while mentioning Michael but saves the slip by using the word animal. They ask Wilbur to give them the body; they claim they want to give him a proper burial. Even though he isn’t supposed to give back an animal of this size, he concedes and lets them take the body back when he realizes how much Michael means to them.
Things start to speed up after this. To begin with, he goes through many of the stages that newly bitten people go through. First, there’s the heightened sense of smell, which might be overwhelming at first but can be tempered over time (and not be so obvious about sniffing things). Then you see that your bite has healed much more quickly than it should have. A nascent lycanthrope also benefits from a newfound sense of self-confidence as well as a wellspring of animal ferocity. Then there’s the first full-fledged change, which can be both disconcerting and exhilarating at the same time.
We see all these changes in Wilbur with his newfound sense of confidence and animal-like intimacy in bed. However, we also see the buildup of the murder mystery in the background. Geoff, the repeated name of a largely absent character in the episode, dies at the hand of the same mysterious animal.
Wilbur discovers this when the detective who is handling this case comes to him for guidance on the animal. Wilbur, who has already transformed once but doesn’t remember anything from the night before, feels too anxious to be able to answer the detective’s questions appropriately. The switch seen in the detective is quite evident as he starts questioning Wilbur and his motives instead of looking for advice on how to find and capture the animal in question. This becomes a repeated occurrence with their interactions as the story proceeds.
Wilbur, at this point, realizes what he has transformed into (a werewolf) and goes to meet the Dougdales. He offers his condolences to them for the loss of their son. We see an understanding pass between them, and their eyes change color, indicating that they are both werewolves now. Wilbur talks to them and tries to understand more about his new life. He claims that the bite was a blessing, and it saved his life. He raises his concerns about the increasing number of animal attacks.
Mr. Dougdale tells him that despite not remembering details of the previous night, it can’t be possible for him to be associated with the attacks. If a man is good in their human form, then they will be good as a wolf as well. Werewolves won’t do anything in their wolf form that they won’t in their human form. So naturally, Wilbur asks if they had something to do with the attacks instead. Turns out they are actually vegans. Yeah, vegan werewolves are a reality in this episode.
On the other hand, Michaela, Wilbur’s assistant, gets attacked by the animal. Thankfully, she isn’t brutally murdered like the others. She was still badly hurt and in the hospital when Wilbur was brought there by the detective. While stroking her hair, he smells something. He hunts down the man on the basis of the smell. It seems that there was some leftover blood from the killer on Michaela’s fingernails.
Now, this is where it gets interesting. We have ruled out the possibility that the killer is Wilbur because of the way he runs after the killer, but the suspense keeps you hooked until the end. We follow him into an abandoned-looking building, where he transforms into his wolf form before meeting the killer. This is where we encounter him, the small man consisting only of flesh and bones.
He is a reverent follower of the wolf god Fenris, and he has been killing people so that he can also turn into one of them. He believes that Wilbur has been sent to him to bite him. He keeps asking Wilbur to bite him, and when that doesn’t happen, he apologizes for failing to kill Michaela. He says that he planned on going back to the hospital to kill her.
During this process of rambling, he is continuously enraging Wilbur. But, of course, our killer doesn’t realize that. He continues to tell Wilbur how he killed all the others. He brings out a costume with metal jaws and claws. He had been using that costume to commit all the other crimes.
This seems to be the tipping edge for Wilbur. He charges at the man, and well, whoosh goes the arm. I really thought that he would control himself and call the detective instead, but I do like the killing the killer portion better. After that, he walks out of the room and changes back to a human.
The movie ends with a very positive gathering at Wilbur’s dining table. His family life has gotten a lot better, and so has his relationship with his son. They are all at the dining table with the Dougdales and Mikaela. She has scars on her face, but other than that, everything else seems to be going great. He follows Patty (his wife) to the kitchen, where he claims he wants to share everything with her. And then he bites her, but we don’t see it happen. I guess there will be another werewolf family on the block, and I’m here for it.
Review
“Something with Bite” is heavy on humor, as you’d expect from a script written by John Landis’ son, yet it’s lighter on horror than it should be, certainly lighter than An American Werewolf in London. Wilbur is a typical upper-middle-class person with a loving, non-‘hood-dwelling family, and race is never a problem. Dickerson does an excellent job with the comedy portions, as one can expect after his work on Demon Knight.
Fear Itself’s framework does not allow for gradual and delicate world creation. Dickerson and the writers must choose between a comedy about Wilbur’s transition and a genuine crime mystery, and they choose the former.
The conventional theatrical relationship between comedy and tragedy isn’t as diametrically opposed as one may think. In Shakespearean criticism, there’s a joke that explains the gap. A wedding is a difference between a comedy and a tragedy. It doesn’t matter who is killed, who is dethroned, or what aspects of society are destroyed; if any pair ends up together in the end, it’s a comedy.
Even if there are dark, painful situations in a comedy, it is still a comedy. Something with a Bite is a bit of a gimmick with the over-the-top werewolf transformation and the murder scenes full of dismemberment which has been toned down quite a bit to fit into the TV standards of censorship. However, Something with Bite makes for a very fulfilling watch despite everything.