Box Art: THE DENTIST

Collecting Physical Media is a dying hobby.  Digital Media is becoming more overwhelming and prevalent all the time.  Streaming services offer what seems to be an unlimited amount of titles.  However, services like Netflix and Hulu are actually far more limited and temporary.  So, in our hunt to find interesting titles that can only be obtained physically, I offer you THE DENTIST.

The Description:

“Dr. Alan Feinstone (Corbin Bernsen) is a rich and successful Beverly Hills dentist. In fact, he is so much more - a fine connoisseur of music, the owner of a palatial mansion, and the proud husband of a beautiful wife. There’s only one problem - he’s insane. Dr. Feinstone loves perfection, and he expects it of everyone. Unfortunately, no one is perfect. This unacceptable fact annoys the good doctor and leads him to commit his one small imperfection: murder. Murder is so messy, and Dr. Feinstone hate messes. But sometimes he just can’t help killing a patient or two.”

The Box:

Dentists can be scary. They stick needles in your mouth, scrape your teeth, floss you until you bleed, and they drill in your face. That’s the worst. They stick a drill in your mouth and drill right into your teeth. Sure, it’s all your fault for eating all that candy and drinking all that dew but… but… SHIT! That is some scary real-life shit. The cover depicts this horrific act right before it’s about to happen. The girl is obviously scared out of her mind as the drill approaches. The doctor’s gloved hand seems to clench with pleasure as he dives into her funky mouth. “IT’S BEEN SIX MONTHS. TIME FOR YOUR CHECK-UP!” Six months? Try six years. I’m SUPER due for a check-up. 

The box got me with the “From the Creators of Re-Animator”, a beloved classic of the messed up horror movie genre. The Dentist was directed by Brian Yuzna, the producer of Re-Animator. However, if you are expecting Re-Animator style awesomeness, you will be disappointed. On the back cover it states, “Produced by Pierre David, one of Hollywood’s most prolific and successful producers, with his hits like PLATOON and INTERNAL AFFAIRS.” Three questions here: 1) Who the fuck knows who Pierre David is? 2) Who the fuck cares who Pierre David is? 3) Are they really putting The Dentist in leagues with Platoon??? Winner of four Oscars, Platoon?!?

"The movie I'm most proud of is The Dentist" - Pierre David

The description depicts Dr. Feinstone as a perfectionist, which is funny because the description has a typo, “...and Dr. Feinstone hate messes.” Dr. Feinstone would totally schedule an appointment with that writer. 

The Film:

It’s pretty fun. Yuzna makes great use of the feeling of invasiveness of someone poking around your mouth and the general fear that surrounds dentists. I cringed everytime he fucked with someone’s teeth. Corbin Bernsen was great as Feinstone and I really enjoyed his descent into madness. At one point, he is holding a gun in a girl’s face, ready to blow her brains out and she pleads for her life. He lets her go when she promises to brush her teeth 3 times a day and to never eat candy again. It’s a truly hilarious scene. The Dentist is this middle of the road movie that is far from greatness, yet isn’t that bad, which in the end makes it sort of forgettable. That is, until you have a toothache. One of the final scenes has Feinstone running around and chasing a young girl and he yells, “You can’t hide! Not from your DENTIST!” Wrong. I've been hiding for six years and my teeth... hurt. I should probably go to a dentist...

-T. Reinert