‘Bite’: As lifeless as its bloodsuckers

By Joe Brown

Monday, Aug. 10, 2009 | 2 a.m.

It’s common knowledge what vampires dislike: crucifixes, garlic, wooden stakes, daylight, mirrors ...

But how many of us have given any thought to what might make vampires happy?

Before seeing “Bite,” the topless classic rock vampire revue at the Stratosphere, I was unaware that vampires really, really like spanking. During the show, they frequently give one another — or themselves — a good smack right on the pert little undead behind.

That’s not all I learned about vampires — at least the lithe, young female vamps from “Bite.” Aside from human blood, they also enjoy cute, up-to-the-minute haircuts, and they have an eternal boudoir’s worth of complicated-looking but easily removable black lingerie, including bustiers and corsets, vinyl microminis, cropped camisoles and fringed G-strings.

You must have noticed that vampires are suddenly everywhere in pop culture as of late. The restless teen vampires of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series dominate the best-seller lists, and the subsequent movie topped the box office. Novelists Vicki Petterson and Laurell K. Hamilton recently set vampire detective novels against a Las Vegas backdrop. TV viewers have fallen prey to Alan Ball’s HBO series “True Blood.” Members of Vampire Weekend are big rock stars, and there is only one explanation for the eerie longevity of Keith Richards, Ozzy Osbourne and Madonna. It’s just a matter of time before vampires are demonstrating neck-tenderizing techniques on the Food Network.

Long before vampires hit the zeitgeist, entrepreneur Tim Molyneux recognized they were a hot gimmick waiting to happen — and they were just itching to take off their tops and bend over and peek at us from between their legs on a Las Vegas stage. “Bite” has somehow squeezed five years out of this gimmick.

Photographers in black hoods and capes wander from table to table through the showroom before a sepulchral voice announces that “the vampires may touch, lick and fondle you, but you may not do the same.”

When they appear, the vamps don’t waste a moment — they doff their capes, baring their fearsome fangs and their yearning-to-be-free breasts before the second verse of “Welcome to the Jungle.” Their dance routines — a comprehensive tour through the Great American Stripper/Go-Go Repertoire — are set to a classic rock soundtrack, and they writhe and pose solo and in squad formation to snippets of such songs as “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Cold As Ice” and “Maneater.” (You get the idea.)

These six main night stalkers — Cat, Tush, Ice, Fire, Pain and Shimmy — are quite lovely and limber, each with a distinctive look, but they rarely get through a complete song. The soundtrack, which runs from AC/DC to ZZ Top, is annoyingly jerky, as if controlled by an impatient iPod user with an extremely short attention span.

There’s not much of a story line: A buff black demon with glowing green contact lenses craves to be reunited with his long-dead Queen of the Night. He compels his scare-’em harem to enact the torment of the darned through dance. Their gyrations and feral facial expressions are broadcast via closed-circuit on large screens flanking the stage. The effect is like a cheesy Skinemax soft-core flick set to hard rock.

The dance sequences are interspersed with a big-voiced live singer, some hokey magical illusions involving skeletons, a dance battle between two male demons using bones as nunchucks and acrobatic performers who add novel spins to the now-standard aerial routines.

I’m afraid I may have made this bloodless “Bite” sound more exciting than it is. It’s hardly as camp, creepy or clever as it might have been. I don’t as a rule give “grades” in performance reviews, but if I had to give “Bite” marks, it would be a lukewarm C-minus. You’ll feel like a sucker if you pay full price.