Tooth and Nail

I'm astonished that some people are rating this movie a 9 or 10. It really just isn't that good. Sadly, it had all the tools to be successful, including an interesting premise, a wealth of experienced acting talent, a great filming location, and convincing effects (although this being 2008 you can't really give much credit for the latter anymore).

Unfortunately, they still managed to screw it up. The villains' actions didn't make much sense, neither did the protagonists', for that matter. They consistently made really stupid decisions, presumably to create tension and a "stalking killers" feel, except the killers weren't scary. The "twist" was predictable and lame. Dialog was passable, but nothing to write home about. I did feel the actors all delivered the best performance they could with what they had, but there just wasn't much to work with.

The script really needed a couple of critical rewrites before going into production, I actually laughed out loud at the cliché "dramatic face painting in preparation for war" scene near the end. The ending is frankly boring and unsatisfying. Instead of this movie, you could just watch Mad Max and Doomsday while completely hammered, then take the resulting mess of memories and remove anything entertaining or intriguing, it will be the same experience but far more fun.

Michael Madsen is a fine actor, even though he's the same guy in every single role, but his association with this mega bomb may finally, have done him in. The dialog in Tooth and Nail is so poorly written, that I was laughing out loud at scenes that were supposed to invoke pathos. The premise of this movie is so stupid, that even an eight year old would find fault in its logic. It's kind of a pity to see guys like Madsen and Jones in a piece of crap like Tooth and Nail and makes you wonder who the hell talked them into it. The only redeeming aspect of this film was the DVD cover design, which was misleading at best. 8 Films to Die For, whose choices included some great, quirky horror in the past, has lost credibility in my book (of the undead of course).

In the barren landscape of a post-apocalyptic America, a small group of survivors (largely teenagers/young adults, conveniently) find themselves up against a group of cannibals who kill seemingly at random and who seem to only come out at night.

Good news: Robert Carradine is always watchable in his underused character, and character actors Vinnie Jones and Michael Madsen are fun if completely underutilized. Some nice, messy kills and a few scenes with passable suspense.

Bad News: So much potential, the film tries in it's final minutes to be more clever and intelligent than it is, forgetting the cardinal rule to horror movies in this category: Stay tongue in cheek, stop pretending like the audience hasn't seen this done before...and much better, too.

Tooth and Nail took on a completely different aspect than some other cannibal movies for me, besides Silence of the Lambs of course, and I think it is possibly the most cunning of the 2nd Annuals, Borderland following extremely close behind, or maybe tying. Not too many things were wrong with this film for me except that it was kind of out of the blue how cannibals decided to raid this hospital which supposedly had people in it, and that Michael Madsen did not have as big of a role as I thought he was going to. However, the movie entertains and has a nice execution. It is really exciting and fun to watch. The characters are not really done that well, but they are passable and the script, while lazy, is still decent. I just had a blast watching it. It is not a masterpiece, and never could be quite honestly, but the whole premise is very enjoyable. Tooth and Nail is actually though tied for my favorite Afterdark Horrorfest film overall so far, so it's definitely worth the watch, in my honest opinion.

you can past that the general conceit of the whole film, America turning into a barren wasteland simply because they used up all the oil, is a straw dog impossibility and if you push aside that character's this stupid and ineffective could survive when nearly 2/3rd of the population have passed on, then this certainly had the capacity to be a fun little flick. Now capacity and actuality are two vastly different animals. It doesn't help that the three best actors in the film, Robert Carradine, Micheal Madsen, and Vinnie Jones, are vastly underused. Nor does it bode well that the twists are inane. I didn't completely detest the film and had fun with it up to a point. And while it's among the top of the "8 films to die for", that's more of an indictment on how crappy most of those films were than anything else. This still ranks FAR below "Borderland"

My Grade: C-