Tooth Fairy Occasionally, the subgenre of “childhood horror” that breaks through the crowd of youth horror films is hardly capable of receiving a worthy reincarnation in modern cinema. The new production from the production hand of Guillermo Del Toro undeservedly cracked bloodthirsty rating R, although it is nothing more than a children's horror story, which is customary to scare the most impressionable children at the campfire in the summer camp.
The film sometimes begins to take place according to traditional genre clichés, leaving only slight hints from them, teasing the audience’s vanity and experience. And when it seems that it is already clear what follows next in such paintings, "Do not be afraid of the dark" sometimes successfully surprises, but in general hardly knocks out beyond the limits inherent in this genre.
However, from the pile of such stories about the cursed old building, where a new family enters, there is no ridiculous banality in the spirit of ghostly children, or someone’s obsession, they will not put another piano in the bushes in the spirit of the killed “valuable and beloved” fish, not every attack will end in mandatory death, and they are not going to hide mysterious creatures from the viewer at all.
Well, the debutant in the big movie Troy Nicksy decided not to overload the picture with drama, the characters left a conditional template, and the plot logic neglected to create a proper atmosphere and traditional boo-effects. The banal “dad, I saw monsters!”, “daughter, you all dreamed” is played with such stone types, as if the audience had never watched horror films, and moreover – they have never been seen by the heroes of the picture themselves.
The introverted heroine Bailey Maddison outplays all the other cardboard heroes on her head, among which, it is ridiculous to think, there is a “all-knowing gardener”, and “at the time a successful cook”, and other heroes who surfaced in their parts regularly throughout the history of horror films, deigning almost never to change.
As for Katie Holmes, at first she is not much of a remarkable character, surprisingly in the second half of the film begins to show due adequacy and interest in the whole story. And when everything is obvious to the grin, for some reason hardly a smile can appear on the face while watching. Successful camera work, tense musical notes, very prudent staging of the most climactic scenes create an excellent atmosphere of horror and fear here, which is lacking in many modern horror films, and aspiring to turn to comedy.
You can certainly scold many times for a worthless R rating, although the picture barely pulls even on PG. You can swear at the monsters immediately shown in all their glory, when everyone around you serves Monstro, Super 8 or Blair Witch. And while all sorts of primitive fakes for movies in the form of pseudo-documentary delirium collect a rabid cash register, the real horror is forced to crowd and pass almost unknown. And the fact that with an adult rating, the director naively removes a children's fairy tale, means only that he simply does not have the courage to strip Katie Holmes or adequately remove a bathroom episode, which does not detract from the talent to competently put a frightening scene with creeping ugly monsters, but will hardly add confidence to the director in his further activities.
Maybe it’s just the creatures that are illuminated in the trailers, or maybe it’s all in their design – instead of really sinister arachnids, scurrying on the walls like rats, we are offered a group of hunchbacks who did not pass the casting on Quasimodo only because of their small height, and the main mistake was to make this army of wagging madmen also the leader! This tooth fairy with his teams is exceptionally sweet, and the irritation on his face causes only disappointment in modern CGI and the use of computer graphics in horror films as such!
And it seems that you empathize with the characters, and you are frightened at the right moments, and in suspense keeps at least an action-packed finale, or even scenes with a moving teddy bear, but the film is so devoid of any zest that you hardly want to review it ever, while the original work of John Newland 1973 I want to recommend to everyone and review again and again. Tonight. One/one. In pitch darkness.
On the other hand, it seems ridiculous to reproach a child’s horror story that it is a child’s horror story. The movie doesn’t want to be anything more than it is. Another question is the audience’s expectation, and who wants what from the picture? She knows how to scare, so for horror this is probably the most important thing. You can search for some hidden meaning, both unsuccessfully and with discovery. One can draw parallels with the Labyrinth of the Faun for a long time, pointing out that if there was a military conflict shown through children's imagination, then here the same thing happens directly with the problem of divorce. And that Guy Pearce's bad performance, like all his delusional character, is just a visual bad example for all dads to start showing sensitivity. And the dedication of the heroine Katie Holmes should show young viewers (and such a horror film is exclusively recommended for children despite all adult ratings!), that stepmothers can be close friends and are ready to help, understand, make friends.
But whether for the sake of simple truths to start all the nonsense about children's teeth - a separate and open question. Del Toro loves these folklore characters so much that he shoves them wherever he can. Well, why not, after all. We are waiting for horror stories about evil house, bloodthirsty bath and forest slasher with a killer Kikimore, and better yet about luring men fairy-nymphomaniacs or mermaids. However, in the history of cinema, what was not, and now cheap graphics can only ruin beautiful ideas.
For unknown reasons, the picture resembles in the end not the previous works of Del Toro, but the beautiful thriller “Game of Hide and Seek” with Dakota Fanning and Robert De Niro. The same drawings, the same brunette, such an unknown force and murder. The creators of the new version of “Don’t be afraid of the dark” could turn a similar twist at the end, but decided to sometimes play with the lack of common sense, however, somehow surprising. It could have been worse.
After a good horror movie, it is usually difficult to sleep at night, and for sure especially impressionable young viewers, who have not had much more to watch in the home film library, on air channels and on the network, even “Don’t be afraid of the dark” from Niksi will seem very scary. The rest will have to be satisfied exclusively with the atmosphere and successfully bent suspense. There's nothing more here. Insanely talented Maddison, organically fit and beautiful Katie Holmes, and do not know why running around them little men. Probably to scare you. It'll work out.
7 out of 10
Original