The Tooth Is Out There

In the plaintively titled Sabertooth (2002), YET ANOTHER science lab is doing YET ANOTHER genetic experiment on prehistoric DNA samples. Everybody used to copy Alien (1979), Now they just copy Jurassic Park (1993). Oh sure, they’ll figure out how to grow a sabretooth tiger in a mayonnaise jar, but they can’t cure a hangover. Why do we keep giving scientists tax breaks and new white coats?

Of course the tiger gets loose and goes into the woods to crap and eat people. Not necessarily in that order. Enter David Keith, a no-nonsense big game hunter hired by the lab to bring the prehistoric cat back alive. Easier theorized than accomplished. To add color (red) to the linear plot, a team of camp counseling trainees go into the woods to learn how to keep underprivileged kids from being eaten by punk rock bears or wood sharks. We’ll call these people “appetizers.”

The visually pleasing Vanessa Angel works for the lab and is protecting the sabretooth so that she can reap lots of taxable income. But David Keith wants to kill that toothy furball because its been killing everyone else. This is what we call a conflict of interest.

One of the trainees has two large knives, which he uses to sword fight the sabretooth. For that he deserves to die. And he does. Outside of Keith, everyone deserves to die. And they do. As for the sabretooth tiger, while it might be able to brush its teeth easily since they’re hanging out of its mouth, the rest of the digitally-made beast isn’t even cool enough to be a stuffed animal at the county fair where you have to knock over three milk bottles with lead weights in ’em to win. That game is totally rigged.

Sucking Succubus

A couple of spoiled rich dudes go to Cabo (though they later tell police it was Cancun), where they score chick after chick with some of the worst pick-up lines ever uttered.

One such chick is so hot as to be a Succubus, a demonic entity that has humpty hump with you and then kills your. sex drive – permanently. The guys bail the next day without even saying, “Well it was certainly nice to have unsafe intercourse with you, Ms. Succubus – hope you don’t have to wait long for that succu-bus to take you home.”

This makes Succ-y mad. So she follows them back to L.A. and becomes an mega psycho bitch and kills those whom the “dine-n-dash” lover is close to. Interesting premise, but any guy with a psycho-ex is quite familiar with that kind of horror.

Problem #2: Succubus: Hell Bent (2007)  was written and directed by a chick, which means nudity is extremely limited.

Problem #3: They really shouldn’t let the actors write their own dialogue.

Problem #4: Way too long at an hour and a half. Then again, it’d be way too long at six minutes.

Problem #5: The director put her favorite band in the club scene and gave them way too much screen time. They suck more than the Succubus.

Problems #6 through #43: The special effects. (Succ Succ’s wings are so obviously wax paper, they have to blur them out so you don’t notice) are horribly outdated (think Netscape 3).

Lorenzo Lamas, David Keith and Gary Busey (as a heavy metal demon fighter) have bit parts, but watching them is as painful as watching this movie. They should’ve made Busey the monster because he’s scarier than anything to come from the depths of Hell. And that’s a compliment.