Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Strange Killers: The Tooth Fairy

Really?  Really?  I mean, really?!?  This 2006 horror film alleges to be about the creature of our youth.  Oh boy, I can't wait.  Let's try and find something good here.  It was directed by Chuck Bowman, the man who directed...um, an episode of the Tremors show and the Sheena show.  Okay, that didn't work.  One of the writers was the guy who created The A-Team.  Yeah, he's great and all, but is he really known for horror?  It stars Lochlyn Munro, a character actor who's appeared in White Chicks, The Art of War II and Space Buddies.  Yeah, I've got nothing.  Let's just get right to it then.  Get out your magic mirrors for my review of...
The film begins in the 1940s, because I need more silly flashbacks in my films this week.  By the way, 'the 1940s' covers a period of roughly 3,650 days- you want to be more specific?  Anyways, some kids wander into a house and get attacked by a witch.  One kid escapes, while the other is chopped up with an axe...off-camera.  You can kill a kid, but don't you dare show it!  In the present, we meet a bunch of characters that I don't care about...I mean, that are totally interesting.  A lady and her daughter stop for directions at a gas station.  Next thing you know, the two men working there try to rape her!  It's true- every guy is out to rape you, ladies.  It apparently has something to do with her going to her ex-fiancee's bed and breakfast.  How does that relate?  Well, the men were squatters there until he came and reclaimed the land for himself.  That's a rational reaction- right?  We also meet some random other people, but I don't feel like talking about them.  One of them flexes for the camera, fulfilling the movie's cheesecake quota.  Once that's done, he's killed by the witch.  Very well then.
I won't bother to pretend like this movie has much of a linear plot.  The witch kills a bunch of people.  Other stuff happens, but that's all that's really interesting.  So, what do we get as far as deaths?
* The creature kills both of the rednecks by cutting off their 'Third Leg of Bruce Lee.'  What a tiny, but traumatic injury!
* A hippie woman is killed.  Apparently, waving a dreamcatcher at the killer doesn't work- unless you're in Dreamcatcher!
* A guy who's a cross between Josh Brolin and CM Punk gets killed before he can make whoopie.  Thanks to bad writing, he mistakes comments made by a person in the other room as being from a person that's right on top of him.
Have you ever wanted to see a film crap all over itself and kill any fear it's established?  Well, you're in luck.  Thanks to talking to her ghost friend- after all those Fulci films, I accept anything- our young heroine figures out how to stop the creature.  When it comes for her, she busts out a big mirror and scares it off.  I'm sure that there's a reason for this, but- you guessed it- I don't care.  The vicious killer gets chased out of the house by our heroes before the lead guy sets her on fire.  This bothers the witch so much that she...continues to chase.  The girl takes her magic box- it has teeth in it, I guess- and uses it to summon the spirits of the kids she killed.  The witch flies into the air and explodes.  The End.
This movie sucks.  It has no real plot to speak, no interesting characters and no idea what the word 'pacing' means.  The movie spends so much time establishing all of the characters and locations that it loses all momentum.  The whole point of a 'pre-credits' kill is to build up some momentum.  They don't.  Instead, they meander around for a bit with some unrelated stuff that ultimately amounts to very little.  Those redneck guys. They get one more major scene, get their asses kicked and then die.  Clearly the whole movie would have fallen apart without you!  The killer is kind of interesting, but I didn't really buy into it.  It never becomes an iconic character or really does that much.  I've seen killer weasels murder people- what do you have to offer?  This movie is not the worst I've ever seen or anything- but it's just so underwhelming.  I've seen better and you can too.  Although, it could always be worse...
Next up, I celebrate the two-day window of both my parents' birthdays (yes, really).  That means one thing- an Argento film with 'mother' in the title!  Stay tuned...

4 comments:

  1. I considered including this one in "150 Movies You Should (Die Before You) See" based on the title alone, but never did get around to watching it. It still lurks in a pile of DVDs in the corner of my office, waiting for me to run out of movies I don't know suck before I sit down to watch them.

    Your review makes me think I probably SHOULD have watched it, but now that the book is done with, I think it might keep migrating toward the bottom of the pile....

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're better off with 'Darkness Falls.' It's not good, but it does at least try to do something interesting. This film...not so much.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's about time someone took the Tooth Fairy down a peg....

    ReplyDelete
  4. I heard that this was actually the original script for Darkness Falls yo, cant speak on that with certainty, but hey, of the two, this one sounds to be the better film anyways lol.. See what I did there? Total burn. Take that Darkness Falls

    ReplyDelete