Night Teeth

This review may contain spoilers!

 

Night Teeth follows Benny, a young college student doing his level best to make ends meet for him and his Abuela. However, his life is shaken up when his half-brother lets him drive a company limousine for an evening and the clients turn out to be two vampires bent on a series of criminal hits. Now Benny is caught hostage between a vampire feud and his stalwart vampire-hunter half-brother. I think this film explores the idea of this very ordinary individual entering the world of the strange and supernatural rather well. Watching Benny slowly unravel the mystery behind the women he's transporting, and discovering the ancient societies that govern LA from the shadows is rather intriguing to watch. I found the cinematography to be a rather consistent feat that impressed, a very colourful blend of neo-noir and supernatural thriller captured through the lens. The soundtrack for the feature has a real indie hip hop vibe which gives a few key scenes some weight.

 

Alfie Allen, who played Victor, actually feels like a classically powerful and sinister vampire; Allen has this real menace about him that he deploys well and you can feel him manipulate the power in a scene to his favour.

 

However, the best performance came from Lucy Fry, who played Zoe. This performance was the stand out feature of the film and easily my favourite part. Fry plays this 200 year old unhinged sociopath of a vampire, who is at times noble and others violently unpredictable. The way this character begins by coyly teasing and making fun of Benny, peppering with a light verbal assault really pulls your interest. Fry does a great job of hinting at there being more under the skin, which she explosively gets to build up to revealing. I liked how fun Zoe was, her insanity and completely off the wall dialogue made her such a wild role to watch. Fry would move through a scene and look like she was having the time of her life, owning the frame. She really made you want to like Zoe without hiding any of the merciless and wanton violence that stems from this character. Lucy Fry is the reason to watch Night Teeth.

 

I got an understanding where this film would go wrong the minute that opening narration started hitting me with the world-building exposition monologue. Night Teeth (and many other vampire films) tends to suffer from a supernatural world that doesn't really feel fully realised. There is some general idea of concept but the execution is rather empty and filled with holes. This idea of greater LA being carved up by vampire clans except for one neighbourhood run by vampire hunters is really as deep as the thinking goes here. You never understand the significance of the vampires and why they've divided into these mob-like ruling families. Any time the film cut to Victor exacting his 'grand plan' I couldn't help but feel a little bored; even more so when Jay and the vampire hunters got involved. The character of Benny feels like a strange central protagonist just because his personality goes through very spontaneous changes. Early in the film he is that awkward stammering young man with a very naive view of the world, but later he is strangely the shy wannabe music producer who the undead vampire is utterly enraptured by. But the end of the film really drives the point home, Benny becomes this unwaveringly confident figure who makes sexual advances and launches into action sequences. The whole feature feels like it wants to be a power fantasy at times, which is more than a little shallow. The fact that a film like this has such a complete lack of fight scenes seems surprising, but when you see a lot of the poorly choreographed edge/back of frame fighting you begin to join the dots. The special effects share the symptoms here, watching a character heal a bullet wound in their head is rather poorly done and the disintegration of the vampire roles has been done better in TV shows.

Jorge Lendeborg Jr., who played Benny, gives a very scattered performance which is the last thing you want from a leading protagonist; Lendeborg Jr. plays different emotions for different scenes but never manages a cohesive character. Debby Ryan, who played Blaire, is very obviosl placed in this movie to be a romantic love interest and she plays up to the fact; but Ryan lacks the gravitas required to be this imposing vampire figure so it is impossible to believe the contrast the film is trying to achieve with her role. Raúl Castillo, who played Jay, is one of the least grounded roles in the film; Castillo takes the stoic vampire hunter way too seriously in a film that very rarely tries to achieve a serious tone. Marlene Forte, who played Abuela, is te rather generic parental figure for the film; Forte really plays a very two-dimensional role and has no special connection with her onscreen children. Megan Fox and Sydney Sweeney, who played Grace and Eva respectively, are big names for the posters because they are barely cameos in this; I think there is something underwhelming about having a coup overthrowing Fox and Sweeney without showing any action. Alexander Ludwig, who played Rocko, is really such a bizarre performance that helped make the final act a real fizzle; Ludwig's choice to make Rocko this half-drunken/stoned character was weird and didn't really fit with the character being one of the vampire heads.

While there is some camp fun to be had this is another vampire flick with very little substance to it. I would give Night Teeth a 4/10.