The Dentist

Following in the grand tradition of casting L.A. Law actors as psychotic medical personnel (see also: Dr. Giggles), The Dentist stars Corbin Bernsen as Dr. Alan Feinstone, a successful dentist with a beautiful wife and a seemingly perfect life.  However, he has to worry about dodging the IRS, and then he discovers his wife having an affair with their tattooed, grungy pool man!  Already obsessed with cleanliness, these latest events push the good doctor over the edge, causing him to spot dirt and decay everywhere he looks. 

He first takes his frustrations out on a dog who got in his way while he was creeping around in backyards and hallucinating.  He makes his way to work, where he imagines that his young patient's teeth are rotted, going bonkers and slashing the boy's gums.  Things only get worse from there for his patients, his staff, and anyone else who crosses his path.

Bernsen gives an absolutely manic performance, prone to screaming fits while spittle trails from his mouth.  He delivers some ridiculous rants, such as "I am an instrument of perfection and hygiene.  The enemy of decay and corruption...  A dentist.  And I have a lot of work to do " and "You don't know what it’s like. The discipline, the long hours, the lack of respect! And a world that goes on ignoring dental hygiene!" 

The supporting cast is largely forgettable, though Mark Ruffalo does pop up as the agent of one of Feinstone's patients.  And Ken Foree does well with his small role as a cop investigating the death of the pooch.  When asked by his partner why Feinstone would want to shoot a dog, Foree's character replies, "Because he's a dentist, and they're capable of anything."

The action moves fairly slowly, with a lot of hallucination sequences showing Feinstone's downward spiral.  Even when it becomes obvious that the dentist is off his rocker, his staff remain quiet, aside from the occasional observation that the patients are "dropping like flies."  The flick is definitely more campy and comical than it is scary, though the torture scenes are definitely unnerving, especially to those who already fear going to the dentist.  Gums are slashed, teeth are drilled away to nothing, and a tongue is cut out, all in closeup.  It's gross stuff.

The Dentist is a total cheesefest, with a low budget, over-the-top acting, ludicrous dialogue, decent effects, sick humor, and gratuitous nudity (Lisa Hoffman bares her breasts numerous times).  In other words, it's exactly what its audience expects.

Terror Train

Terror Train begins in a manner similar to Prom Night, also released in 1980 and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, with a prank gone wrong.  This time, a group of obnoxious frat guys play a trick on one of their pledges, the nerdy Kenny (Derek MacKinnon), making him think he's going to lose his virginity to the beautiful Alana (Curtis).  She tells Kenny to come kiss her, but when he approaches, he discovers he's in bed with a cadaver and understandably freaks out.  Three years later, the students are celebrating their graduation with a New Year's costume party aboard a train.  The festivities are interrupted, however, when someone starts killing the passengers.

The train is a good setting for a slasher, as it really traps the characters, leaving them with no way out.  And because the action takes place during a costume party, the killer dons various disguises, making it easy for him to pretend to be someone else and gain his victims' trust.  The villain remains masked for most of the film.  I'm not sure whether his identity was supposed to be a mystery, but it's completely obvious who he is long before the big reveal.  The film isn't very suspenseful, and gore is kept to a minimum, with most kills taking place off-screen; the big effect is a decapitated head that looks really fake and is shown for approximately one second. 

With the possible exception of Alana, none of the characters are very sympathetic.  The most annoying is Doc (Hart Bochner), a loud, arrogant asshole who cares about no one but himself.  And his friend Mo; there are some serious homosexual undertones here.  Doc deliberately gets Mo in trouble with Alana, telling him, "If she dumps you, you've always got me, you know.  I mean it."  When Mo is found dead (the killing having taken place offscreen, of course), Doc takes it harder than Alana does, shrieking and sobbing uncontrollably as he paws at Mo's body.  

As expected, Curtis does a fine job of screaming her lungs out, and she goes head-to-head with the villain in a well-done, intense chase scene.  Interestingly, it is not her character, but Ben Johnson's Carne, the conductor, who first discovers the bodies and tries to convince others of the danger onboard.  David Copperfield is woefully out of place, playing - what else - a magician, whose tricks seem to take up roughly half the film's runtime.  Pacing is an issue here, with lots of time wasted on magic and passengers dancing to disco music.  The first hour especially is very, very slow.

Terror Train has a few things going for it, most notably its setting, but turns out to be a by-the-numbers slasher with very little slashing.

Hatchet

One of Hatchet's taglines is, "It's not a remake.  It's not a sequel.  And it's not based on a Japanese one."  While this is technically true, it's not really anything new either, as writer/director Adam Green does his best to make this feel like another '80s slasher.

After the opening, in which a fishing trip turns deadly for a father and son (Robert Englund and Joshua Leonard in the first of many cameos by horror film vets), the action shifts to the streets of New Orleans, where Mardi Gras festivities are in full swing.  Ben (Joel David Moore), despondent over a recent breakup, is tired of drinking and looking at boobs.  His friend Marcus (Deon Richmond) reluctantly joins him for a haunted swamp tour.  Unfortunately, the boat sinks, leaving the tour group to discover that there is some truth to one of the local legends when they come face-to-face with deformed backwoods madman Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder).

Crowley is not a particularly unique villain, a mix between Cropsy and Jason Voorhees.  There are no chase sequences here; Crowley appears out of nowhere, howls loudly, and begins slaughtering people in gruesome ways.  This is one area the film doesn't skimp on, as heads are ripped in half and twisted off and limbs are torn off and tossed around.  The victims are shown no mercy, as Crowley goes for the overkill every time.  Not content with simply taking a belt sander to a woman's face, Crowley then impales her.  After ripping off one guy's arms, he grabs his body and slams it against a tombstone.  Refreshingly, the effects are traditional prosthetics and buckets of fake blood rather than CGI.

It's worth mentioning that the group doesn't actually encounter Crowley until more than halfway through the film's short 84-minute runtime.  Rather than playing it straight and using this time to build suspense, Green injects a lot of humor into the script.  Some of it works (Tony Todd's "chilling" story of why he no longer does haunted swamp tours at night), but most of it doesn't.  The dialogue spewed by the two Girls Gone Wild-esque aspiring actresses is the worst.  One doesn't realize that the cops and the police are one and the same and wonders whether 911 is the correct number to dial to reach them.  They also trade insults such as "Brush your teeth much?" and "Your nipples are dumb."  Making the dialogue intentionally stupid doesn't make it funny.  Equally bad are those occasions where the characters take time to explain an already unfunny joke rather than letting us try to forget it.  At one point, Marcus calls the Asian tour guide "Jackie Tucker," then goes on to clarify, "Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker."

However, Richmond is pretty funny as Marcus, and he hits more than he misses.  I got a kick out of the scene where he asks Ben to spot him some money for the swamp tour.  Ben asks, "Why, you don't have any cash?"  Marcus drops the pretense of looking in his pockets and replies, "No, I'm just not paying for this bullshit."  Parry Shen is also hilarious as the faux-Cajun-accented guide who clearly has no idea what he's doing.  Tamara Feldman is the weakest link, a shame because it soon becomes clear that her character is the heroine.

In the end, Hatchet is an odd one, attempting to be both a throwback to the slashers of the '80s and a self-referential parody, but not excelling at either.

Going to Pieces

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film is a 2006 documentary adaptation of the book of the same name.  Through a combination of narration, interviews, and film clips, the documentary takes a look at the slasher sub-genre that was so popular in the '80s.

The list of interviewees is impressive, with all of the big names in the genre - John Carpenter (Halloween), Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th) - represented.  Also on board are Herb Freed (Graduation Day), Amy Holden Jones (Slumber Party Massacre), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), and John Dunning (My Bloody Valentine).  It's refreshing to see some attention given to slashers not featuring Michael, Jason, and Freddy, especially because the supplements to these films are usually lacking or nonexistent.

Among the most interesting segments is a look at the controversy surrounding the Christmas slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night, which created an uproar thanks to its ads emphasizing a killer dressed as Santa Claus.  Protestors succeeded in getting not only the ads pulled, but the film itself.  Other films up for discussion include The Burning, April Fool's Day, Happy Birthday to Me, The Boogey Man, and The Prowler, which makeup/effects maestro Tom Savini considers his best work.  Countless films aren't discussed in any depth, but featured in clips.  These include Alice Sweet Alice, Terror Train, Student Bodies, and The House on Sorority Row.

Going to Pieces is mainly concerned with Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th, which makes sense, as they are heavy hitters within the genre.  Unfortunately, that means that fans will have heard most of this material elsewhere.  Nor is this documentary really good for new fans of the genre, as the endings to many, many films are spoiled.  These include some of the bigger names, but also many of the lesser-known slashers in which the twist ending was a highlight of the experience.  For some reason, the documentary doesn't identify which films the clips are from, which makes it difficult for viewers who might want to track down potentially interesting slashers.

Some potentially meaty material such as the criticism of the sub-genre is glossed over, while highly influential films are not given their due.  Peeping Tom and Psycho are briefly mentioned, while an interview with Black Christmas director Bob Clark has been relegated to the DVD bonus features.  (These extra interviews are certainly worth checking out, as they also include informative sessions with Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stefano and My Bloody Valentine producer Dunning, among others.)  However, there's plenty of time to discuss Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, along with Saw and Hostel, not necessarily films that come to mind when one hears the word "slasher."

Though it's flawed, the documentary is well-presented, and it's obvious that those involved truly love slasher films.  Perhaps Going to Pieces is best for lovers of the subgenre who wish to have their appetites whet for revisiting some favorites.

The Final

2010's The Final was released as part of the After Dark Horrorfest, which, each year, presents audiences with the chance to see eight films which never made it to theaters.  The entries I've seen have been for the most part mediocre or just plain awful, so I usually steer clear of the series.  However, I came across The Final on Netflix and gave it a chance, and I have to say it's easily one of the better After Dark films.

Whereas most of the Horrorfest films probably couldn't find distribution because they suck, the issue here is most likely the subject matter.  A group of high school outcasts, sick of being bullied by the popular kids, decide to get revenge on their tormenters by drugging them, torturing them, and teaching them a lesson they'll never forget.  As ringleader Dane (Marc Donato) says, "Think of this as the final, and there's only one question:  What did I do to deserve this?"

It's a disturbing premise, one which writer Jason Kabolati and director Joey Stewart wisely treat with seriousness.  It's easy to sympathize with the outcasts early on, especially in one particularly effective scene where Emily (Lindsay Seidel) quietly tells the mean girls that she thinks they would really like her if they just gave her a chance.  However, once they put their plan into action, it's impossible to condone their actions, nor do I think the filmmakers want us to.  Even after one of the bullies has obviously learned her lesson, the outcasts continue to torture her, and they even turn against each other, with Dane killing one of his supposed friends for deviating from the plan.  They become even worse than those against whom they're seeking revenge.

The torture scenes are grim and effective, even though they're not especially graphic.  We don't actually need to see the knife severing one character's spinal cord to be affected by it.  The film is technically well-made, with interesting camera angles and lighting work helping to mask the film's low budget.

However, Donato's performance as the lead outcast is painfully over-the-top and threatens to pull the viewer out of the film.  In fact, during one of his preachy, interminable monologues, I actually fell asleep and had to rewind the film once I awoke.  Many of the characters are little more than stereotypes, so the actors don't have much to work with.  Seidel is the standout here, managing to be both sympathetic and chillingly sadistic.  His performance was a bit uneven, but I did like Jascha Washington as Kurtis, one of the popular kids who is probably the most decent person in the film.

There are also some odd scenes which I hope were included to convey just how insane the outcasts were.  One involves the crew asking God to show that he approves of their plan by not taking any action to tell them otherwise.  Unless these scenes were intended to illustrate insanity, they were really misguided.  It's definitely a flawed film, but The Final is well-made, unsettling, and surprisingly worth watching.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5

When Silent Night, Deadly Night was released in 1984, Mickey Rooney was one of the film's most vocal critics, writing a letter of protest in which he called the makers "scum" for desecrating Christmas.  Ironically enough, seven years later, Rooney went on to star in the franchise's fifth entry, The Toy Maker.

Rooney is Joe Petto, who owns a rather unsuccessful toy store.  He and his son Pino (Brian Bremer) also live in the shop since their house was foreclosed on.  The house is currently occupied by Sarah (Jane Higginson) and her son Derek (William Thorne), which may or may not explain why Pino decides to break in and hide in Sarah's bedroom.  As if that weren't enough to deal with, the two are trying to cope with the loss of man of the house Tom, seen in the film's opening being attacked by a Santa toy that showed up addressed to Derek.  Pino also tries to give Derek a Larry the Larva toy, but it is instead bought by Petto's most frequent customer Noah (Tracy Fraim), who winds up giving it to his landlord, advising him, "It's to die for."

So the film continues, with mysterious presents being left for Derek, the kid refusing to open them, someone else getting hold of them, and killer toy mayhem ensuing.  The film is poorly paced, and it gets very tedious very quickly.  The effects by Screaming Mad George are surprisingly disappointing, consisting of crap like a rubber snake, roller skates with rockets, or a Santa ball that sprouts little arms.  Most of the toys don't actually kill anyone; instead, people just overreact to them and flail around until they're impaled by fire pokers or hit by cars.  More than one character returns from the dead, as well.  A chick is shot by an army of toy soldiers with guns, leaving her a bloody mess, but she shows up alive and well later on.

It all seems like just another bad horror movie with nothing to make it stand out - aside from some truly insane moments, like a bizarre ending involving attempted rape by a robot that lacks genitalia and cries while screaming, "I love you, Mommy!"  And we get the chance to see Mickey Rooney in a Santa suit holding his sack (of toys) while watching two teenagers screwing.  It doesn't get much better than this.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5 is obviously not scary, and it's too boring to be much fun.  However, those who do decide to watch it will be left with some indelible images.