A movie that is supposedly a tense vampire thriller, according to Netflix’s description and genre, is bereft of the one thing that it is supposed to have: suspense.
Adam Randall’s (of I See You fame) Night Teeth , released on October 20, is nothing like its name. Well, yes, there is a lot of the night and teeth involved, but that’s where it stops. Benny, played by Jorge Lendeborg Jr. (he was in MCU’s Spider Man ) is a Mexican college student who is into music, with big American dreams and lives with his grandma. His life is fine, until he offers — instead of his brother Jay — to chauffer around two ladies across Los Angeles to make some money on the side.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Everything is sunshine until he realises that the ladies, Blaire and Zoe, are centuries-old, bloodsucking vampires. Blaire (Debby Ryan), is the kinder of the two, as she slowly falls in love with the human driver. Zoe (Lucy Fry) seems like a breath of fresh air in the beginning, but gets a bit dreary after a while. Oh, also humans and vampires have apparently co-existed for centuries without causing each other any harm.
The girls go from one club to another killing vampire bosses (and drinking blood, of course) for Zoe’s guy Victor (Alfie Allan from Game of Thrones ), who is tired of playing the game by the rules, and now wants to inflict chaos in the city.
The movie gets unsurprising quickly, as Benny joins in on the wild vampire-human chase when he realises that his brother Jay is a potential target (Jay is a vampire hunter, who knows everything about this deal of co-existence).
ADVERTISEMENT
Even though the cast includes popular names such as Megan Fox, Sydney Sweeny and Alexander Ludwig, they make less than five-minute appearances in the movie. A little more background into the lives of Benny, Blaire and Zoe instead of just jumping right into the vampire-human wars — that supposedly everybody knows about — would have been more interesting, when the main plot is established.
Blaire and Zoe make for a wicked pair as they go around causing mayhem everywhere, though Benny is either a little slow in understanding things (even though he does carry an Economics book with him) and accepting that vampires exist.
However, the narrative struggles to make it clear who the story is about; are we following Benny or the vampire girls? Or are they just sub-plots in the larger drama stitched together by Victor?
Ultimately , Night Teeth barely bites the surface of the bar that several good vampire movies have created. With an all-too predictable ending that pre-empts a sequel, we can only hope for a better joyride out next time around...
Night Teeth is currently streaming on Netflix