The Doom Generation (1995) - Araki's violent, sometimes sexy, not that good 5th

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The in-your-face style poster for Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation

QUICK REVIEW:

A young couple drives out on an adventure and picks up a sexy stranger to go with them, who, however, soon gets them involved in several bloody murders.

You can't really blame adults in the mid 1990s for being slightly uneasy about the younger generation with films such as this. Great LA writer-director Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin (2004)), in this his 5th feature and second film in his Teenage Apocalypse trilogy (also consisting of Totally F***ed Up (1993) and Nowhere (1997), shows us a depraved and deeply unhealthy youth, utterly lacking any moral compass while navigating in a manufactured, mediated type reality.
Som sexy scenes and stars James Duval (Donnie Darko (2001)), Rose McGowan (Fifty Dead Men Walking (2008)) and Johnathon Schaech (Broken Horses (2015)) light up in the general nihilist-apocalyptic mood of Doom Generation, a film that wants to be a lot more than it is.
SPOILER Unfortunately, it also ends in an unnecessarily vile scene of violence, in which Duval's genitals are mutilated. Yuck! Poor, sweet Duval...

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 0.8 mil. $
Box office: 284k $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty (but likely at least a big flop)
[The Doom Generation premiered January 26 (Sundance) and runs 83 minutes. It was shot in January 1994 in LA and was Araki's biggest movie to date. At its Sundance premiere, many critics reportedly walked out. Roger Ebert was among the harshest critics of it, giving it a zero star rating. In North America, it received small public reception, probably heavily influenced by its being released unrated, peaking in just 20 theaters. It was released in at least 16 countries besides the US, so without a world gross, it is impossible to ascertain its theatrical status, however, it was likely at least a big flop. McGowan was nominated for the Best Debut Performance at the Spirit Awards, losing to Justin Pierce from the great Kids. The Doom Generation is rotten at 47 % with a 4.8 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Doom Generation?

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

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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?