Two Front Teeth (2008)

Dear Santa, 

This year all I want for Christmas is a new holiday horror movie that actually delivers. I can only watch Black Christmas, Christmas Evil and Silent Night, Deadly Night so many times over the holidays! I want something new, something fresh and something that doesn’t involve horrible acting from 20-year-olds trying to pass themselves off as teens. 

Santa, if you bring me this one thing, I promise to be good all next year…no matter how many bad horror movies I have to put up with.

Yours truly,
Fatally Yours

And with that, it seems that Christmas has come early this year, as Santa delivered a shiny new Christmas horror movie to me called Two Front Teeth.

Two Front Teeth may not be all I asked for – it drags at times, has bad pacing and the storyline isn’t as developed as I’d like – but this horror-comedy delivers plenty of laughs.

Gabe Snow (Johnny Francis Wolf) is a timid journalist who works for the X-Mas Files, an Enquirer or sorts that covers holiday-related phenomenon, such as sightings of Rudolph, mutant snowmen, Santa giving the gift of…crabs, a sex scandal involving Mrs. Claus, and so on. While he’s busy working late one Christmas Eve, his wife Noel (Megan Pearson) is busy boinking a mall Santa…when out on the roof arises such a clatter, she and mall Santa spring from the bed to see what is the matter. They don’t find Santa coming down the chimney, but instead some vicious, bloodthirsty elves. It seems that one of Gabe’s stories is actually true, and these evil elves will stop at nothing to find Gabe’s source for the story. Gabe’s source has something of value to the elves and that it is all tied to a story Gabe wrote on the crash of Flight 1225.

Gabe and Noel flee the elves, but end up wrapped up in a Christmas conspiracy involving tooth fairies, evil elves, a vampiric Santa Claus, nun assassins, Rudolph’s red nose and killer fruitcake. Can Christmas be saved before it’s too late?

Two Front Teeth is certainly a fun film, peppered with Christmas references, but it is not without its flaws. Its comedy is superb, with quite a few very funny lines (“They didn’t have any ho-ho’s” or “You’ll shoot your eye out, you son of a bitch! ), but the plot feels lacking, almost like the jokes were written first and the story was cobbled around them. The lack of a well-developed story is the film’s biggest problem and really drags the film down. The reason why the elves are attacking and the story surrounding Flight 1225 are explained briefly (in an animation scene), but I would have preferred more of a focus on this part of the plot. Without more emphasis on the how’s and why’s, the film soon starts to feel like we are just watching Noel and Gabe run from point A to point B to point C, which definitely gets old after a while.

The pacing also feels uneven. When the film begins we are immediately thrown into the action, but as Gabe and Noel try to outrun the evil elves things get repetitive. Things pick up towards the end in a final showdown, but between then things feel a little slow. Also, some scenes drag on a bit too long and the film could have benefited from some tighter editing.

Despite these problems, the film features some truly memorable Christmas gags. My personal favorites include the “Silent Knights,” a trio of nun assassins sent from the Vatican to save Christmas, the 3 Kings Motel, using fruit cake as a weapon and Clausferatu, a vampiric Santa. This kind of humor is definitely the film’s strong point.

Another strong point is the acting. For an independent film, all the actors do a good job with their characters. Even the actors who play the evil elves are creepy! And what great makeup is done on them! The special effects, with the exception of a cheesy severed head, are also decent, though this isn’t a gory film.

Two Front Teeth is by no means a perfect film, but despite its flaws it still manages to be pretty damn entertaining. If you are looking to add a bit of Christmas cheer to your holiday season, all you need is Two Front Teeth!

Ask Santa to stuff it in your stocking!

Available from Amazon!