The Dentist: Smarter Than You Think.

Something weird just happened to me and I've decided to share it with you. Whilst searching for a mindless film to satisfy my hunger for entertainment, I came across The Dentist. For some reason I had thought I remembered a scene from this that I once caught on television. A man crazy yet oddly proper, was covering his face with blood and laughing in front of the mirror. All these years I thought that movie was The Dentist--but it's not! Maybe it's the Dentist 2 who knows. This was not the weird thing that happened by the way, just a happy divergence.

Where was I... oh yes the weird thing was this---halfway through the decidedly atrocious The Dentist, I began to care. I began to understand that Brian Yuzna wasn't just trying to entertain us with a silly movie about a crazy dentist---this crazy dentist had a purpose...Brian Yuzna was trying to tell me something!! Could it be that a film like The Dentist is actually much smarter than we could have ever imagined? And furthermore why aren't more people talking about The Dentist?

I could be wrong of course. I could just be confusing a stab at good film making with the startling addition of beautiful opera music. Opera music is like a British accent...it fools you into thinking something is smart. But then again...how many silly movies about crazy dentists, involve the comparison of a tragic opera with the tragic life of Dr. Alan Feinstone? Not many I would guess. Yes, The Dentist has fooled us all into thinking it's just another crappy 90s horror film. Not only that, I am also seriously considering adding this film to my ultimate list of disturbing movies. The Dentist is a film with many surprises.

Dr. Alan Feinstone is just your typical OCD, clean freak. On he and his wife's anniversary however he comes across a startling observation. His wife giving the pool boy a blow job. This event sends Dr. Feinstone spiraling into a fit of madness. He starts becoming obsessed with how everyone and everything is decaying. As a way to fix this, he starts killing and torturing his patients and co-workers. He starts hallucinating that his wife is in the chair and things continue to get messy.

The Dentist is no easy movie to sit through. I say this coming from about 9 years of orthodontic nightmares. Violent teeth extraction, cutting out tongues, picks violently stabbing gums, drilling away teeth---every possible cringe worthy scenario you could imagine is pretty much represented. And while the fake mouths that all this trauma happens to is obviously a fake, it still does not make any of it easier. We're talking extreme close ups of needles piercing gums people. The Dentist is actually believe it or not one of the few films to make me flinch and rethink eating that sausage.

The thing about The Dentist however is that it carries with it this strange and overwhelming sense of realness. I know you're laughing at me but hear me out. Anyone that we meet in our everyday lives could crack at any minute. Our dentist could very well crack and just start killing people. People catch their significant others cheating all the time, and the outcome is often very similar to Dr. Feinstone here. There's even a brutal and honest realism involved in the extremely disturbing scene of attempted rape.

You've heard the stories, of patients put under by dentists and wake up to find that their shirt is wrongly buttoned? Well here is that nightmare scenario shoved right into our faces. Dr. Feinstone is not a serial killer he's just a regular up type guy--with a lot of authority. The fact that he gets away with as much as he does, is terrifying enough.

How is this possible? How can The Dentist infuse themes involving the Milgram experiment, be cheesy, funny, scary, filled with boobs AND still be an operatic masterpiece? Believe me I have no idea.

In many ways, Dr. Alan Feinstone is the star of his own opera. The film begins and ends with an opera, and in a more dynamic way, one of the final scenes even portrays Dr. Feinstone on the stage shrouded in light while his last moments are made clear to us.

Dr. Feinstone is a tragic hero. We aren't following the victims in The Dentist--we follow the dentist himself. We are forced to witness every extraction and every little brain malfunction that Dr. Feinstone has. I wouldn't go so far as to say that we are sympathetic towards him, but still--there's something there that keeps us holding on.

Really though, The Dentist honestly just kind of freaks me out. I don't care if it's supposed to be funny--I truly find it to be disturbing and even a little bit scary. All that tooth trauma, and Dr. Feinstone is SO crazy...doesn't just make you feel funny?

It leaves me feeling a little scarred. I'm serious. By all accounts The Dentist does deserves a spot on my most disturbing list. I'm disturbed about the events that took place and I'm disturbed at the deterioration of Dr. Feinstone. I'm also disturbed that The Dentist even has some pretty mind blowing camera work going on, and even---yes even....beautiful blood.

I mean really, have I gone mental or what?

Also--Mark Ruffalo???

Ken Foree?

I believe Biff Tannen said it best when he said...

What the hell is going on here?

Maniac: I'm Bringing Leotards Back

My search for the disturbing and icky continues with the slasher/sleaze/splatter film Maniac-- a perennial Christmas favorite? I hope so. Although the film contains no rape, and gratuitous, graphic violence (well, that's not exactly true but you know it's no...Cannibal Holocaust) it still comes off as rather shower inducing. Perhaps it's the overall grime that wraps itself around New York City in the 80s, or maybe it's the completely messed up mind that is Frank Zito. Whatever it is, it makes me feel yucky!

Frank Zito is a maniac. He has mommy problems that Norman Bates would be proud of and brutally kills and scalps women in a bizarre act of reminiscence. After scalping them, Zito takes their bloody hair and puts it on a mannequin. After filling his apartment to the brim with mannequins, Frank soon befriends a photographer who soon ends up entwined in his cruel and horrifying world.

Perhaps what is most off putting, is Frank Zito's babbling that ensues after coming home from the latest killing. He talks to someone, presumably his mother, or the side of him that forces him to kill women---who knows? It is these scenes I believe, that got to me the most. He really is a maniac, and because we don't know all there is to know about him and his past--it makes things that much more terrifying. We aren't scared in the typical way of course, more just silently thankful that we haven't yet met a Frank Zito in our own lives. He is quite normal on the outside I should mention. His tenants, and the people he comes across on a daily basis have no clue what goes on inside that apartment so who knows--maybe we have met a Frank Zito and not known it!

One of the strange things about Maniac, is that we never see the aftermath. We are fully in the vantage point of Frank throughout most of the film. What happens to the bodies after he kills the women is irrelevant. All we need to know and realize, is that Frank puts an incredible amount of care and kindness into each and every mannequin. This is oddly respectful for a gory, "splatter" film. Instead of the bulk of the violence being unnecessary and used for a bizarre form of entertainment, the violence in Maniac all seems necessary to the overall point of the story. It is this fact perhaps that prevents me from actually classifying it as either a Slasher or a Splatterfest film. I believe I will just put it nicely in its own little category...very far away from any other movies so that it won't hurt them of course.

Another odd thing about Maniac is that it's pretty stagnant. Nothing ever really develops that is shocking, no detective is on the case, no one is suspicious, there are NO close calls. If Maniac was hooked up to a heart monitor the line would just steadily be beeping along. Again, this is unusual for a movie with this subject--it's only further proof of how much more important the characterization (or lack of it) of Frank is, than the guts and glory.

Frank Zito is one of the most interesting characters I've seen. It's like he's an onion that never actually gets peeled. His apartment provides a jumping off point for a world of assessment. The naked pictures of the woman with their naked parts scratched out, the creepy dolls, the doll locked in a cage--it's all very interesting isn't it? And yet we never really get to know what his deal is. It's almost like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in that respect. He's just a serial killer, a madman who hasn't necessarily been explained to us--which makes things very unsettling.

The gore as per typical of a Tom Savini piece, is pretty brilliant. The famous shotgun scene was more eye opening than I could have ever hoped for, although I could have done without the glance into what a typical date with Tom Savini would look like.

The scalping was pretty gross...I'll be honest, scalping is not one of my strong suits, so seeing each grotesque little patch of hair in that plastic bag was just....bleck. It really, really gave me the willies seeing all those mannequins.

I think it has to do with how Frank's scalping only allowed for a tiny bit of the hair to come off. Which gave the mannequins all the illusion of having some weird butch haircut.

I loved how all the mannequins sort of came to life at the end. Not only does it prove my theory that all mannequins come to life once Frank Zito turns off his Christmas tree lights, but it retains a perfect visual for Frank's victims. Each one of those mannequins in that apartment is essentially a person. It's a memory of what Frank did, although he doesn't of course see it that way. By the film's end, when they do come to life, Frank is associating his guilt with what he has done. It's kind of brilliant when you think about it.

I guess I didn't expect to come away from Maniac with anything. My decency maybe, but not a new outlook on characterization and what happens when it is purposely left out. I'm not sure if it will end up on my ultimate list of disturbing movies though. I will have to think more about this. Maybe instead I can make a list of movies that made me want to shower afterwards. Aha a compromise! In any case, Maniac, I think I like you. I think.

OH also....I'm pretty sure that the hotel the prostitute and Frank go into at the beginning is the same hotel from BIG. St James? Let's examine the evidence.

Maniac

BIG

BIG

Same facade. Ding ding ding! I am GOOD.

And still also, why can't all prostitutes wear leotards? Things would be much classier.

Slugs: I Guess No One Will Be Getting Naked and Crazy Now...

Unbeknownst to myself, Slugs is helmed by the same magical director of Pieces, Juan Piquer Simon. A man who knows how to make a terrible, god awful film that is so god awful, it magically turns into a good film because of it. While Pieces was a pretty terrible film, Slugs is even worse! I'm still confused about whether or not this makes Slugs a better worse film than Pieces, therefore making it a better film by default. A....divided by C minus B times the square root of awesome..... right well, I'm stumped.

So here's the deal. Toxic waste produced man eating slugs. These man eating slugs start taking over a whole little town. Mike Brady is trying to stop it. No one believes Mike Brady. Except some people. They kill the slugs with lithium. People say funny things. PS. It's Halloween. (?)

The whole movie is kind of like that summary. Short sentences compiled together that sort of relate to one another. There are possibly over 56 characters in this film, that all at some point interact with one another, but it means nothing. There could be so many interesting side plots that just didn't develop and it's a damn shame because I really wanted to know why that alcoholic slut didn't eat any of the slug lettuce, or why the mayor changes secretaries so frequently. I guess I'll never know. Also....wait a minute....it's Halloween!? I LOVED when someone suddenly was like, "Oh yeah I'm going to a Halloween party tonight" in the last half hour of the film. Good job building up the Halloween atmosphere. Also...worst Halloween party ever.

Hmmm perhaps this was an attempt to make Slugs a little more creepy. Or maybe at the last minute they realized...crap this is a horror movie and all good horror movies take place on Halloween!! That must be it! They discovered the formula. Thank goodness, a well placed Jack-O-Lantern is all you need to make Halloween look convincing.

Let's be honest. Slugs is hysterical. I'm pretty sure you could make an entire film based off the hilariousness of the quotes in this movie. Here is the general way quotes work in this film.

Guy 1: How was your day?

Girl 1: Okay. Let's have sex.

Guy 1: Okay. BUT WAIT there are man eating slugs in this town.

Girl 1: But how?

Guy 1: I don't know.

Girl 1: Oh.

Guy 1: What do you want for dinner?

Girl 2: Greg died today!

Guy 2: Oh my God that's horrible! He was my best friend.

Girl 2: He burned alive.

Guy 2: Oh God! How did it happen?

Girl 2: I don't know.

Guy 2: Oh.

Girl 2: So what did you do today?

Guy 2: Ohh nothing, did some errands, hung out with Greg.

Girl 2: Oh that's nice.

Guy 2: Yeah that was before he died.

Girl 2: Oh. Let's have sex.

Pure poetry. To top it all off, the slugs have sharp and pointy teeth! Which are very useful by the way, when biting wax fingers.

I guess Slugs fits into that category, of killer animal movies where the animals aren't very threatening. Frogs also fits into that category (which I can't wait to see by the way). When the slugs attack someone, it really just looks like they are being overcome by some leeches. I have a pretty hard time coming to terms with the fact that a slug is doing this to someones body.

Or that slugs are capable of pulling someone beneath the water and cause their blood to bubble out.

Well, I guess these are toxic waste slugs so the rules don't apply. But come on people, how fast can a slug really move?

Although the idea of killer slugs is pretty funny, the gore in this film is excruciatingly nasty. Peoples eyes being pulled out, hands being severe, slug gloves, slugs in the stomach, slugs everywhere! And blood, blood, blood mixed with slug slime.

Yuck. Word to the wise--do not attempt to watch slugs while eating honey.

So in any case, Slugs is perhaps one of the most entertaining things I have seen in a while. Bad haircuts,

bad outfits, douche bag kids thinking that a really great prank is to rape someone--this film has it all. God bless you Slugs.