Title: The Tooth Fairy
Genre: Supernatural Horror
Cateogy/Type: Direct to Video Movie
Cast: Chandra West, Lochlyn Munro, Nicole Munoz, P. J. Soles, Sonya Salomaa Production: 2006 Stephen J. Cannell
Director: Chuck Bowman
Other: Starring the man most likely to be mistaken for a Busey
"Those guys freaked out when I told them I was coming up here. They were about to rape me!"
"Ehhh, I should have told you not to stop there but I'm glad you and little Pammy are okay. Anyway, come on in and I'll tell you about how I'm fixing the bed and breakfast up."
After some 50's background flashback to establish the threat of the Tooth Fairy, the movie fairly quickly gets right into the movie segue, of a woman and her daughter stop at a garage to ask for directions, and ... the two hicks assault her, verbally indicate forthcoming rape, right in front of the little girl, for whom there is no indication wasn't next on the violation buffet. They arrive at their destination, an inn being fixed up by one of Gary Busey's escaped clones, Lochlyn Munro, who notices the smashed car glass and open gas cap and panel, and asks if they're alright.
Because the woman wasn't going to say anything, merely replying they were late because she got lost. Which was true. But also, rape. As the quote above shows, he sort of does that "tsk tsk, I forgot to warn you about those wacky, rapey locals" and then goes on to fish for compliments on his inn.
That's nice about your inn... HELLO - ASSAULT AND RAPE? The woman asks "What is their deal?!" and he sighs ruefully and says, "It's a long story," and she just nods and gets her stuff out of the car.
No.
NO!
The proper response the woman should have given is:
"I have every damn second in the world for you to tell me right F*K* now why I was almost raped! I think right NOW is the perfect time for the long story, so you can tell me some incredibly good reason why I am not driving the hell back home right the F*K* now!"
I'm not convinced Stephen J. Cannel was involved with this movie more than charging money for his name to be used in the credits. At least I hope not. He could make at least passable content at one time.
But anyway, I can totally understand how you could dismiss a little bit of attempted violent crime and get back to the important things: a nice weekend away from it all, except for, you know, the rape - pretty much one of the main things I'd think you'd want to get away from, but maybe I'm sheltered.
So, the close call with the local Deliverance rejects forgotten, the woman goes inside to watch TMZ with Buseyclone, while the little girl just wanders off into a shed *somewhere* on the property, no doubt completely out of sight and hearing of the adults. Outside. Alone. Just "up the road" from the Rape'N'Go gas station. Oh well, I'm sure she'll be fine.
Pamela, the girl, meets another little girl dressed straight out of a 1950's Sears catalog, who has an odd fear of handshaking, in about the heaviest plot sledgehammer since two minutes later, when the two girls fix up an old bike and take off into the woods, shown to the viewers normally, but shown from Buseyclone's helper's point of view as only the little girl riding off. Alone. Without telling anyone where she was going. Down the road. In the country. In Raperson County. Do you see the pattern I do, and first significantly large problem with the plot?
I think the only thing they could have done to have dumbed this scene down and insulted the viewer more would have been to have had the strange girl wear a dress that had "I AM A GHOST" stitched into the ambroidery on the back of her clothes. Thanks for giving the audience some credit.
Aaaaand... obligatory creepy warning lady showing up in the middle of the night, talking about everyone being in danger. Check.
Now, let's play... Guess What Happens Next! To set up this portion of our show, I'll describe the scene:
Young Handyman: I guess I'd better work on that old woodchipper in the barn at 2 in the morning and get running. This seems like the pefect time to do work on small parts that requires very good illumination to see very small components on a dangerous old piece of machinery. Welp - better get to it...
After the scene that invariably followed, is the people inside the house:
"Did you hear that? It sounded like it came from inside the woodshed. I'll go check it out." And the guy goes outside after he grabs a flashlight. And nothing else. Not a gun. Not a hammer. Not a baseball bat. Not a knife. Not a fireplace poker. Not even a can of oven cleaner.
Buseyclone's reaction upon finding only Bobby's arm intact, with a new red paintjob on the woodshed floor? Dull surprise. "What the hell?" A reaction roughly more appropriate to someone toilet papering his house than killing his hired help by turning them into hamburger. But he may just be the most jaded innkeeper ever, I don't know. The police provided the gravity and sensitivity that was needed for the situation.
"That dang contraption turned that poor boy into tomato puree".
I'm not sure how much police training these authorities have had, but the guy was tied and duct taped to a board and fed into the woodchipper. You could make a lot of excuses of how badly the body would have been mutilated, but... you don't really need CSI for this.
The ten year old girl also seemed to have been through a zombie apocalypse months ago and possessed a similar pragmatism, as she mouths the words "I can't even bear to think about it" when asked if she wanted to talk about the horrific event, but looked like she felt so bad she might only be able to eat one Pop Tart as a late snack. Poor thing.
Buseyclone Munro says "I know this place hasn't been so peaceful lately" as the preamble to his explanation as to why it was definitely still a good idea for him to stay at the inn and write his book. Because you know, things happen, people get pulled into woodchippers on your property - there's no reason to go getting all dramatic and just up and leaving like you couldn't stand to be around a place that just ate your hired help. Be reasonable, you know?
He then reassures his ... wife? Ex wife? Sister? Daughter? That he won't let anything happen to her or Pam. The look on her face allowed me to only interpret her unsaid thought as "Like being raped by gas station attendants?" The look on Munro's face said only, "I sure could go for a donut".
The next morning, after the police have left and presumably taken the tomato puree with them, the woman finds her car is gone.
"Well that's just the kind of thing those dipshit Hammond boys would do," says Munro in consternation. Oh, those dipshit Hammond boys? The ones that like raping? Those? I know I keep going back to this, but I find the movie's treatment of attempted rape to be unconscionable in the utmost, dismissing it like the guys tried to key her car, not violently assault her and possibly her daughter.
The couple find the gas station/mechanic guys that stole the car and the woman demands they give her car back, saying they trespassed and stole her car and "That's against the law". Yes, stealing a car is against the law. I think I would be a little more worried about their previous attempted crime, but kudos to her for being able to really stick to the relevant issue at hand instead of living in the past. And kudos to Munro's character for not trying to kick the would-be rapist's teeth in, whether or not they're holding tire irons. His self-control is inspiring. They do get into a fight anyway because they jump him and punch her as well.
Let's skip ahead to the next important scene, not counting the couple of nail gun deaths...
"What's your dick doing over there, Chuck?"
You know, this movie is so unaccountably worse than I had any logical way of knowing. This scene was prefaced with the two rapist brothers chasing the little girl in their truck, threatening to give her a "dirt nap", then they wrecked and for reasons I cannot fathom, there, at what the director felt was the appropriate time for it to be inserted, there was what I presume was supposed to be a "comedic segue", as the two brothers walked down the road, arguing with each other, with goofy "boomp, boomp, boomp" musical accompaniment befitting a clumsy Home Alone sequel. For the rapists. Perfect. Chuck was then de...membered, which lead to the quote above. The best part? The blood covered and dismembered organ is fully shown. Because F*K you audience.
Back at the house - Munro's vagrant rocker friend is getting naked with the lady that arrived a week early at the inn. In the same house that has the rocker's dead girlfriend in one room, and the body of an elderly lady on the porch - both dead from nailgun poisoning.
Occasionally people's voice will sound like they have their head stuck in a helium balloon. I don't know if it's because the sound was bad in the original take and they had to re-record it, or they're using some digital effect to enhance it - either way, it is extremely distracting and not at all helpful to the overally atmosphere. Anyway, early arriver lady comes back to find the rocker dead of a bad case of no-head-itis, then hyperventilates and faints onto his blood covered body. Because F*K you audience again.
I really feel like I can't even go into the levels of "nope" that makes up the little girl pretending to be asleep and put herself up as bait to lure the evil tooth fairy witch into her room with an ax, and confront her alone in the graveyard, and... and I watched this for free, and skipped through some scenes, and still feel like I want my money back. Except that money would be forever tainted by a connection to this movie.
Usually, I like supernatural horror movies, the weirder or "badder", the better. I can usually find some charm or redeeming qualities in any, no matter how awful. This is one of the extremely limited few I can say without a doubt is absolutely one of the worst horror movies, maybe even just movies, I have ever had the displeasure to watch. I know that phrase is old hat on the internet, but I don't mean bad in a "bad movie" way - as I said, that's the kind of entertainment I enjoy.
I don't mean The Tooth Fairy is bad in a boring or lackluster or just poorly done way. I mean bad in a very rare, "everything about this was wrong and offensive and insulting, and made me feel dirty" way - not "good", "enjoyable", not ironically bad, not watchable or recommendable in any fashion.
This is from the center of my soul with all serious sincerity and not embellishment or hyperbole for the sake of a review. DO NOT see this movie for ANY reason. EVER.
RATING: -100 out of 5 Stars. Among the worst true abominations Man has created.
No comments:
Post a Comment