Thursday, January 6, 2011

Making Cavities Look Like Candy



As Corbin Bernson knows, any film involving teeth can instantly get some sort of financing and audience interest. Hence, 2009’s Oral Fixation, a cleverly titled horror that combines stalking with dentistry.
Quick Plot: Imagine, if you will, Bill Murray’s masochist dental patient in Little Shop of Horrors (or go back further to Jack Nicholson’s, if you prefer) but made over into a hot chick with large breasts. That would be Rachel, a perky young woman madly in love with her married dentist. Almost immediately, a routine checkup turns into a fatal attraction complete with kidnapping her beloved’s child, attempting to murder his wife, and framing him for rape.

That’s pretty much Oral Fixation in a nutshell, all 79 minutes of it. I’d love to say more, but it’s been 10 minutes since I watched the film and I already can’t remember anything else about it.
High Points
Despite this clearly being a low budget production, the performances by all the leads are actually more than adequate


Low Points
While I always approve of shorter running lengths, I can’t give a thumbs up when the ending is not explained in the least. A neat little shot shows a few heads preserved in jars, but how said heads--possibly the protagonists of the movie--ended up there, if those said heads are who they seem to be, and how their collector ends up where she does...yup, none of it is explained in the least. None.
Lessons Learned
As a private investigator, it’s good to know that most subjects are far more forthcoming with revealing intimate details of their lives after you introduce yourself
Never leave condoms lying around the house where any crazed stalker could do with them as she pleases


An allergy to anesthesia can be a pain, but if you happen to have a fetish for that kind of thing, it's also really convenient




Rent/Bury/Buy
Oh Instant Watch, I would never know what to do with Sunday mornings without you. Oral Fixation is not good, but if you’re like me, it’s not the worst way to kill 80 minutes of your life. It’s goofy, occasionally gory, and ultimately, a film that knows well enough not to overstay its welcome. Now that it’s no longer streaming, I wouldn’t advise you to seek it out with any energy (i.e., using a Netflix rental on the film) but should it ever get back there, it’s...you know, a film about a psycho who gets off on painful dentistry. Make of it what you will.

2 comments:

  1. As I have an abject fear of dentistry, I was in no danger of seeing this flick (or Corbin's), but your review convinced me that this time I'm not missing anything.

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