milkhole213

Edgar Allan Poe's Darkness is featured in the Mortuary of Madness 50 movie box set. Unlike many of these films released on Pendulum Pictures box sets this at least somewhat resembles an actual film with decent cinematography and audible audio. Unfortunately that's about the only positives I can say about this one. The story has a theatre troupe of about 4 people enacting some of Poe's stories. This allows for much pretentious and annoying dialogue. The worst culprit is the main character Rex played by co-writer Adam Smoot. His character is annoying, innovatively foul-mouthed (not as much fun as it sounds) and he tries to affect a gruff voice that only makes his come off as even more painful. His character is meant to be "hard" and intimidating but he just comes off as a scrawny, insecure wuss. He ends up being one of cinema's most loathsome characters.

The other two main characters are a blonde guy who likes bloodletting and the girl in the middle who both men seem interested in but they also seem interested in each. The two "bros" even partake in bloodletting, cutting their arms and sucking each other's blood. Doing this with a chick would be hot, with another dude it's just totally gay. Fortunately that's the extent of the homosexual antics though there's still some pretty strong gay vibes between these two especially after the girl disappears. There's some subplot about the blonde guy being haunted by the ghost of Poe. There's also flashbacks to a really bad and effeminate actor who is supposed to be Poe. These are even more painful than the rest of the movie. There's mostly just dialogue for this films preposterous 90 minutes runtime. It doesn't even cut you a break by having opening credits. There is a bit of gore at the end including severed body parts in a fridge and a well done slit throat. Overall, this is pretentious, bad dialogue heavy, boring and almost completely lacking in tension or atmosphere or anything else you'd want from a supernatural horror film. This isn't the worst thing on these box sets and is more competent and ambitious than most but it's also not something anyone needs to see unless you're a Poe fanatic or masochistic like me and willing to sit through all 200 films on these 50 movie box sets.

The first Tooth Fairy movie is one that eluded me on my bi-weekly visits to the Human sideshow known as Walmart. I guess I was slightly pickier back then. I bought the fourth entry there recently not realizing it was part of a series. Fortunately I found parts 2 and 3 at Goodwill and was able to obtain the original on eBay for less than the cost of a new movie and that includes shipping. A word of warning to people hoarding Scott Jeffrey movies for resale value later on, don't do it. Even those sexy slipcovers won't make these turds valuable. This doesn't feature Scott's usual coterie of actresses/actors with none of the faces familiar to me. It does feature the overly dramatic dialogue and talkative nature of most of Jeffrey's movies. Like all of them they start out fast and furious and then plod along with endless drama and boredom for the vast "middle" part of the movie. Things pick up at the end with some decent kills involving teeth removal and a toothbrush death which was unrealistic but fun. This movie also features some pro-sugar propaganda, with the deadly white substance being one of the few things that can harm Tooth.

Tooth is a really lame moniker for a killer creature. The creature itself is kind of cool looking during its brief screen time. This also features a quick scene of the often annoying/occasionally funny Shawn C. Phillips in an online video explaining the history of the Tooth Fairy. Like most Scott Jeffrey produced movies this is dreary, colorless, humorless, way too talky and wastes a beautiful English countryside location. There's no sex/nudity as usual though the cast is absent of beautiful women so it's not a huge loss. There's also a very sparse amount of blood and gore. Jeffrey has been involved in some fun films, Tooth Fairy isn't one of them. I'm really glad I have 3 more Tooth Fairy films (with a fifth film in production) to look forward to.