Night Teeth
Might contain spoilers.
A stylish and interesting film, particularly the visuals. The central trio have that indefinably compelling quality to them (Benny and Zoe more so than Blaire). The scene where Benny hits the Night Legion member on the head and the girls deal with the rest behind him is stunning. His abuela[1] is endearing. I like Debby Ryan’s voice.
It’s a shame that instead of a catharsis, Victor’s eventual demise is more of a deflation. There’s no proper anticipation of Zoe stabbing Blaire either; what’s more, the severity of the wound is unclear until we see her alive later. Victor himself is ultimately nothing but a cipher, though Alfie Allen deserves credit for creating a menacing villain out of thin air. The ending also seems to be setting the stage for a sequel, but I understandably haven’t heard anything about one.
The story is deeply muddled. The vampire world doesn’t have much to it beyond being a network of rich people. The Los Angeles of the film is empty: all we see of this war between vampires and humans is a handful of people and a lot of unfilled space. The Night Legion are laughably inaccurate with their crossbows and vanish from the story by the end. Benny goes from shock at seeing Blaire and Zoe kill people to being their little human friend as soon as Blaire kisses him (though in all fairness, he’s very believable as a young naïf)—it’s strange to have this separate romance playing on the periphery of the war.
I saved Maria for you
is gratuitous and repellent. The rules of vampiredom in this film are
quite unclear if they literally eat humans as well. Of course, Maria herself is another empty
character, robbing the moment of any emotional impact.
With all the visual flair and expertise demonstrated in the rest of the film, Megan Fox and Sydney Sweeney’s scene could have been something memorable. Instead, it only exists to put two attractive women in the film so they can immediately be brutally murdered offscreen. (And the lighting on Sydney Sweeney is unflattering, to boot.)
Pajiba’s criticisms are undeniable:
I haven’t even gotten to the fact that there’s a separate group of humans called the Night Legion, hunters who’ve busted out their crossbows now that a vampire has broken the truce, so that makes two (2) different groups of people tracking three (3) individual rogue vampires while the whole of the vampire society sits around on their hands and does nothing. At one point Jay arrives at a mansion we recognize, because it was the first stop on Zoe and Blaire’s kill-blitz where they infiltrated a party and killed everyone inside. Only apparently they didn’t, because the vampire boss — the ONE VAMPIRE they actually needed to kill there — is still alive, just sitting on his deck looking out over the massacred bodies of his underlings and waiting to explain the whole scenario to Jay. The boss didn’t, like, call any of the other vampire mafia heads to warn them of Victor’s treachery, and he didn’t even try to save himself or retaliate. He just sat there. And then Jay killed him. Oh, and the vampire underworld is just, like, members-only hotels and nightclubs and stuff, so it’s exactly the same as normal rich person sh*t. Victor is staging a coup to control nothing interesting at all, because he’s mad that nobody respects him.
- Doctora Escodera from Community !↩