Building Sites Bite is a 1978 public information film produced by the Central Office of Information for the Health and Safety Executive and the Mighty Movie Company for British schools to warn children about the dangers of playing on building sites. The film was written and directed by David Hughes and produced by Maggie Evans.
It was created to teach children about the dangers of playing near building sites, and was regularly screened in schools throughout the UK in the late 1970s and beyond. Because of its similar production values and subject matter, it is often compared to The Finishing Line and Apaches, and can be regarded as an urban version of the latter.
The film focuses on Ronald, a young boy who aspires to become a builder or surveyor when he grows up. His cousins Paul and Jane decide to test his Know-Nothing Know-It-All attitude by teleporting him to a building site and challenging him to find his dog and get out without injuring or killing himself. Needless to say, in every test the lad ignores all the danger signs and gets himself killed in all kinds of horrifying and/or undignified ways.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- Animal Reaction Shot: Every time Ronald dies, the film cuts to his dog whimpering.
- Creepy Child: Whenever Ronald dies, Paul and Jane just stand there watching, completely unfazed.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: In order, Ronald is killed by being buried alive in a trench collapse, electrocuted in a condemned building, run over by an earthmoving vehicle, breaking his skull against a metal retaining wall after falling off a pipe, crushed to death by a falling pile of bricks, and drowning in an abandoned quarry.
- Death Is Cheap: Every time he fails one of his cousins' tests, Ronald is immediately revived and brought back to the teleportation room uninjured.
- Death of a Child: A case where the same child dies multiple times throughout the film, each time in a different way.
- Deer in the Headlights: Jane and Paul's expression whenever Ronald dies or is about to die.
- Dies Wide Open: When Ronald is electrocuted, the camera zooms in on his scorched body, dead on the floor of the building, his eyes wide open.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: Each time Ronald is about to die, the sound of a human heartbeat plays to warn sensitive viewers.
- Imagine Spot: In the end, it turns out that all the deaths were imagined by Ronald, hence his cousins not being fazed by any of it, and he decides not to go into the construction industry.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Ronald at the start of the film. Despite his claims to know everything about building construction, he is totally oblivious to any of the potential dangers. In the end, though, he realises that it's too risky and decides not to pursue a career in the field.
- Precious Puppy: One that Ronald is tasked with rescuing in each of his cousins' tests. Needless to say, he fails miserably every time.
- Too Dumb to Live: Ronald's ignorance to the hazards present at building sites gets him killed in all sorts of cruel and/or humiliating ways.
