10/21/2013

The Dentist 2/The Dentist 2: Brace Yourself/The Dentist 2: You Know the Drill (1998) or, Open Wide ... Again!



A truly horrifying poster for Brian Yuzna's The Dentist 2
 

The follow-up to the low budget horror movie The Dentist (1996) is the story of how the dentist killer from the first film escapes jail and travels to a country town and sets up another dental practice under a different name and returns to his old barbaric 'habits'. In the course of the film, the dentist's tongue-deprived ex-wife finds him to take her revenge.

 
If you get excited about a synopsis like this, and you are willing to accept cheap TV-like production values, (a simplistic keyboard score, no big action scenes or stars and second-rate costumes, special effects, sets etc.), - The Dentist 2 is not so bad.
The writing and acting is pretty bad. Everything somehow revolves around teeth and toothaches wherever the dentist goes, which is a bit silly. And nothing technically distinguishes the film. The dentistry scenes are, however, often done with a 'hovering camera' technique which works. SPOILER These scenes are fairly gruesome, with many close-ups of fake gums and teeth (and strange, raspy-looking tongues...) getting pulverized or stabbed with dental instruments.
The only actor that will be remembered and appreciated in Dentist 2 is its lead, Corbin Bernsen (Eat My Dust (1976)), who is good at playing the delusional title maniac and who makes the film worth watching. As he is the main character, this is one of those serial killer films in which we follow the killer spiral downwards into murderous lunacy, in this case for the second time. There are some disturbing scenes, especially one with a clinically white surgery room towards the end, as well as a memorable ending after that, and just being aligned with the dentist killer for the entire film may also be enough to make you queasy, if you can look past many of the detracting factors in the film. Obviously this is not a thrill for the many but for the (very precious) few.

The Dentist 2 is written by Richard Dana Smith (Alone With a Stranger (2000)) and directed by Brian Yuzna (The Dentist (1996)).

Related posts:

Brian Yuzna: Beyond Re-Animator (2003) or, Once a Re-Animator Always a Re-Animator!

From Beyond (1986) - Gordon's wild and imaginative second Lovecraft adaptation (co-writer)

 




 

Here's a deranged clip from the movie


Cost: 1.8 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain

[The Dentist 2 premiered in July (Fantasia International Film Festival, Canada) and runs 100 minutes. The Dentist films are reportedly based on a real-life dentist serial killer by the name of Nick Rex; however proof of his existence are scarce online, and the true basis could likely be entirely made up. Yuzna reportedly had one week to prepare for shooting. Shooting took place from February - March 1998 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film had a TV premiere in North America in December 1998 and was almost entirely a video release. The video must have been a hit, because Trimark greenlit another Dentist sequel for Yuzna, but he was too busy establishing his company Fantastic Factory to do it. Yuzna returned with Faust (2000). Bernsen returned in Riddler's Moon (1998, TV movie) and theatrically in Kiss of a Stranger (1998). 3.8k+ IMDb users have given The Dentist 2 a 4.7/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of The Dentist 2?

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