DVD Review: The Tooth Fairy



When I watch a movie to review at film geeks, I try very hard to be fair. I try to be objective and review the movie for what it is, not for what it was never intended to be. I'll put it this way: If you're going to eat a bologna sandwich, you'd better not expect it to taste like prime rib. The best you can hope for is good bologna… and if you get good bologna, you should acknowledge it for what it is.

So, when I watch a film like The Tooth Fairy, I don't go into it expecting something along the lines of Schindler's List. When you watch a B-horror-movie, the best you can hope for is something at least mildly entertaining. If a B-horror movie is not insultingly stupid, if it has a plot that more-or-less holds together, and if the acting and directing aren't offensively idiotic, I'll be inclined to give the film a decent review.

Examples of B-horror movies I've enjoyed would have to include Re-Animator and Creepshow and Evil Dead 2. Those weren't perfect films, of course…. But they had their own kind of silly, bloody charm. When a B-horror-movie knows it's just a B-horror-movie… when it doesn't take itself too seriously and has fun with it's own conventions… it can be fun.

And then there's stuff like The Tooth Fairy.

The Tooth Fairy is a B-horror-movie with a reach that far exceeds it's grasp. It never gets really scary, it's attempts at humorous moments are simply stupid, the acting is awful, and the story, to the extent that the film involves a story, makes no sense at all.

Here's the premise, such as it is: In the 1940's in the rural South, a horrible witch lived in a rundown house in the woods. She killed many children and took their teeth. The spirits of the children she killed are doomed to walk the earth until they get their teeth back.

No, really. That's the premise.

Now, in the present day, her run-down house has been remodeled and turned into a bed and breakfast. When a young girl and her mother come to stay at the B&B, the child's last baby tooth comes out, which re-awakens the horrible tooth-obsessed witch. She goes on a murderous rampage and only the child and the ghosts of those children killed in the 40's are capable of stopping her.

I've not made any of that up. That's really the premise of the film.

The thing is, sometimes I get offered free promotional copies of DVDs if I'm willing to review them at film geeks. I don't want to turn any of those DVDs down because sometimes they are crap movies like this… but sometimes they're good films, and everybody likes getting good movies for free on DVD, right? Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to lie to my readers. This is a crap movie and I won't say it isn't… but I did get the DVD for free and I really want to say something nice about it.

I'm struggling to find good things to say about this film. Here's all I can come up with:

• The movie begins with a nice crane shot over a lush, green field. It's the only nice shot in the entire film.



• There's a small role in the film for PJ Soles, an actress I remember from childhood favorites like Rock And Roll High School and Stripes. Seeing her again, even in a crap horror movie like this, triggered a bit of nostalgia.



• The movie's director is Chuck Bowman, who once wrote an episode of TV's MacGyver. Learning these kinds of trivia factoids make me say "Hmm."

That's it. That's all the good I can say about this film.

Other than that, it's the usual B-horror-movie schlock without any of the self-depreciating humor or creativity that can sometimes make these films entertaining. The Tooth Fairy is 89 minutes of badly done gore, horrible acting, brief but gratuitous nudity, awful special effects, and a flimsy and silly story. The plot has more holes than swiss cheese and the characters are somehow less than one-dimensional. Is it possible for a character to be 0.5 dimensional? If so, that's how to describe these characters.

It's the kind of movie that shows you it's gross-outs coming a mile away. You see a woodchipper and you know what to expect. You see a nailgun and… well… do I gotta spell it out for you?

But I'm feeling pretty charitable… so I'll give the movie one star because, like I said, that opening crane shot was pretty… and I'm glad to know that P.J. Soles is still alive.



  ¶ 1:17 PM