October Horror Challenge 2017 #50: "The Dentist"

Continuing today's accidental theme of watching movies I've meant to watch for a long, I decided to pop this one in. With my recent dental adventures, I thought this would be a good movie to check out. Released back when I was becoming a budding horror fan in the 90s, this was one of those movies I've been meaning to check out forever. Back in 1999 I had a terrible experience with a bad dentist who had a temper, so I know they're out there. Mine wasn't a psyco killer (I hope!) but thinking of him still wigs me out a little. Well see if this movie was worth the wait.

I really like Corbin Bernsen, so it's fun seeing him in this movie. He also plays a creepy ass dentist with a temper (oh good, this movie is a documentary). The movie is about a dentist who goes off the deep end because his wife is cheating on him, so he starts killing people. I always thought this was just your regular run of the mill horror comedy, but I forgot Brian Yuzna directed this, so that tells me it's going to be really gory and fucked up, too, so I'm excited to see what nasty surprises this movie has in store.

There's a lot of dreamlike (or nightmarelike) imagery in this movie (hello Brian Yuzna) because the dentist tends to daydream and hallucinate a lot about how he WISHES situations had gone (mostly with him getting violent with people). Way to have a terrible attitude all the time, Captain Angry pants. And this dentist and his wife have the worst relationship ever. Like it makes me never want to get married (or ever talk to another person ever again). At least the cops in this movie are smarter than most cops in horror movies. They at least figure out that something is going on way sooner than I'm used to in most movies like this.

With the gore, the dreamlike quality of the movie, the nutso psycho dentist, and the halfway decent characterization, this movie is a fun little throwback to a time before I'd seen hundreds of horror movies and knew what to expect from them. I'm kind of glad I didn't watch it back then, though, because I think I appreciate it more now.