With Your Opinion Which Is Of No Consequence At All

Remember the first season of Charles In Charge? When Scott Baio was tasked with shepherding some truly dorky kids through those awkward years and Willie Aames’ character wasn’t a complete botard? That was a pretty sweet show. It made unapologetic reference to playing Dungeons and Dragons, which I’m convinced has never been cool, and became a part of mid-eighties American culture without giving in to the self-parodying tendencies that would ruin the last few years. If you were born between 1970 and 1980, and were not born in an Amish community, you remember the theme song, and probably a few episodes. But that doesn’t make it good, now does it?

I thought about that recently as I watched “The Tooth Fairy” on DVD. Let me save you some time and possible spoiler angst: it’s not a great movie. It’s not even particularly good. But it does have some memorable scenes, and a few memorable lines, my favorite of which was “What’s your dick doing over there?” It takes itself seriously, but not too seriously, and it looks beautiful. But the script is a bit weak. Okay, it kind of sucks. The story centers around a witch, in northern California of all places, who steals baby teeth and hacks kids up with an axe. Lochlyn Munroe opens a bed and breakfast in her old house, and she attempts to murder everyone who sets foot inside. Pretty standard Saturday afternoon SciFi Channel fare. The film takes some chances by putting children in danger (and yes, there are some Little Dead Rascals roaming about), but sadly not every child actor is Dakota Fanning or Haley Joel Osment. Speaking of talent, I am a huge fan of Lochlyn Munroe’s work in comedies. He is a truly standout performer in comedies. As a dramatic/action actor he is still serviceable but lacks the dynamic presence that made A Night At The Roxbury watchable.

It’s not all bad, however. As I mentioned above, the death scenes in this are topnotch. There is some real terror early on in the form of some Straw Dogs-cum-Deliverance Bubbas at a gas station, but they quickly become more comical than threatening. I would have liked to see more creepy townspeople, like in Dagon or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Unless you’ve got Tim Curry as Pennywise, ghost stories probably won’t scare me, but the thought of some six-fingered mouth-breather out in the woods who decides to start killin folk is positively terrifying.

In the final analysis, I would not buy this movie. I would, however, watch it on cable for the blood, the brief nudity, and the message that yes, sometimes people who look, act and dress differently than the rest of us are evil and need to be burned alive.