In Defense of | Night Teeth
Night Teeth is yet another entry in the long history of sexy vampire fiction. Since Carmilla in 1872, audiences have been seduced by the moral ambiguity of sexual attraction’s role in society and its ties with danger and death. We haven’t made up our minds if we want to fight vampires or fuck them and Night Teeth is just another example of that indecision.
Night Teeth is a 2021 vampire thriller released by Netflix. It’s directed by Adam Randall who has one other full-length movie credit on IMDB - a 2019 horror called I See You which has a very spooky movie poster. The Night Teeth screenplay is written by Brent Dillon, who has no other credits on IMDB - which I think is so cool. You have to start somewhere and so many screenwriters and authors are dying to get their work out there, so keep your head up. Even if some people hate it - man, it is out there.
When you go for a run on a track and someone passes you, it’s called lapping, as in, they’re on their second lap while you’re still on your first. There’s a saying that I like a lot that comes from that, from people feeling self-conscious when they go for a run because they’re overweight or they’re slow or just feel silly - it’s like, listen: You’re lapping everyone on the couch.
No matter how slow you’re going, how hard it is, you doing what you can is still better than anyone who’s not doing anything. You’re lapping everyone on the couch.
So creatively, even if the work you finish isn’t the best it can be, it’s miles ahead of the nothing that someone else produced. You’re further on your way to being better.
With that in mind, let me just say that people are hating on this movie.
IMDB 5.7 / 10
Rotten Tomatoes 39%
Metacritic 42%
But wait - 80% of Google users like this movie?? That does not gel with the rest. Where are all these people? I’m clearly looking at reviews in my side panel that says 3.7 / 5. I don’t know where this 80% is coming from.
But I agree with them. I stand with the 80%.
I like supernatural movies. I love vampire stories. I also love when movies have a distinct aesthetic and when women are dolled up and kicking ass. So yeah, this is all up in my weak spot.
Official Synopsis:
A college student moonlighting as a chauffeur picks up two mysterious women for a night of party-hopping across LA. However, when he uncovers their bloodthirsty intentions and their dangerous, shadowy underworld, he must fight to stay alive.
Which I think is overselling it a bit. Let’s face it: Benny doesn’t do much fighting here.
Pictured: Not fighting.
Night Teeth is not a horrible movie. It’s not a terrible movie and if it IS trash, then it’s MY trash. It’s my pretty, fun, silly, garbage. Not every movie has to be a masterpiece. Not every vampire movie has to be Underworld.
Night Teeth starts off with exposition in the form of a voiceover. It leads with the lore that serves as the basis of the conflict: in LA, there’s a truce between vampires and the vampire-hunting reps of Boyle Heights. There are three rules: Don’t let humans know vampires exist, Don’t feed on the unwilling, and Never Ever enter Boyle Heights.
We meet Jay. Jay is taking his girlfriend Maria out on a date, even though he picks her up at a laundromat [as a side note, I have many fond memories of weekly pre-dawn trips to the lavanderia with my mom, so I instantly understood the demographic they were going for here] But the washateria would be an awkward place to pick someone up. I guess she just put her laundry in her car? Anyway, he’s taking her out, or for a ride maybe (it’s not clear), when he sees Theon Greyjoy from Game of Thrones. He’s called Victor in this movie.
Spoiler: Does not end well for him
We know something’s up because Victor is driving very aggressively and Jay refers to Victor as a dead man. Jay speeds away from the stoplight and says that he’s got to warn his guys. Apparently, their base is a mechanic shop. He gets out to warn his posse - but uh oh, they’re all dead. Jay rushes back out to get Maria - but she’s been kidnapped.
Next, we establish Benny, our protagonist. Benny is a sweet kid just doing his best. He gets around his neighborhood, Boyle Heights, on a skateboard. He’s in college and isn’t just doing his own work, but is also running a side hustle where he’s doing some rich kid’s homework too for a few extra bucks. The professor calls Benny out for nodding off during class - which, that’s rude, right? I mean, I get it, don’t sleep in class, but he’s paying to be there. The professor didn’t have to call him out like that. The movie uses that scene to quickly establish a crush, and also to show that his crush already has a boyfriend. Poor Benny. Literally and figuratively.
In the next scene, they show him buying a basic interface so that he can pursue his true passion, which is music. We then catch him at home with his grandma, who still works a night shift somewhere. He tells her that one day his music will let him buy her a house, but she just wants him to get an education so that he can take care of himself.
Jay then drops by grandma’s house to pick up a few things. He’s apparently also a manager at a driving service and one of his guys is calling in. I guess…not one of his dead friends. Just a regular guy calling in. Jay can’t cover it because, you know, he has the vampire hunting business on the side. He’s actually at his grandma’s house to pick up a box of vampire hunting weapons he evidently kept stashed there. Benny asks to pick up the driving shift, and he’s obviously oblivious to whatever it is that Jay knows about vampires. When Benny asks about the weapons, Jay forcefully tells him “Don’t worry about it”. Benny needs the money, Jay needs the shift covered, so he agrees to let Benny drive under his name. “If anyone asks, you’re me”. They make sure to have Jay say that twice.
It’s a big Escalade-y kind of car. Luxury, you know the type. Benny is excited by the proximity to the status symbol, and also nervous about the job. It’s an all-nighter, he’s told. Just one job. What he doesn’t know is that this one job is to drive two women around. They look to be about Benny’s age but obviously are a world apart, reeking of disposable wealth. We have Blaire, who is a tad bit more down to earth; when Benny comes to pick them up, she tells him that his fly is down and that her friend Zoe will lose her shit if he doesn’t open the door for her. Zoe is apprehensive, as promised, with an air of carefree violence threaded into her body language and tone. Zoe introduces the ticking clock: they need to hit up five parties by dawn, non-negotiable.
The first party is a masquerade at a mansion. While Jay is somewhere in Boyle Heights getting a crew together to deal with Victor, lamenting that after three generations of the truce being solid, now it’s broken, Benny picks up an encoded jewel that acts as a ticket to this secret fancy party. He hears a distant scream, but no matter. The girls are back and it’s on to the next party.
For party number two, he parks in an underground garage and does a vibe check after the women leave the car. He’s definitely picking up on something weird, but he can’t get ahold of Jay. That’s when he discovers that inside the big bag that Zoe had been carrying is a ton of money splattered with blood. After an initial visceral excitement at the money, he’s really turned off by the blood. Just then a police officer pulls up nearby and starts checking the cars in the parking lot.
Thoroughly spooked and smartly not wanting to be associated with whatever the women are into, Benny leaves the car. He goes the way the women went and finds himself in the lobby of a very expensive-looking hotel. Turns out that encoded jewel works here, too. Super secret-society stuff. He’s escorted to the private party happening on an upper floor. With no way out, he has to go forward. That’s when Benny finds out what the women have been up to, as he finds them with blood on their teeth, sucking on two strapped-down buff rich guys who apparently pay to be treated this way. The vampires kill the men, who weren’t expecting that in the least. Benny gets threatened by Zoe, who calls him “Jay” but Benny reveals that if they’re after Jay, then they’ve got the wrong guy.
Benny now evolves from driver to hostage. Blaire convinces Zoe that Benny is still the best route to Jay, so Benny gets to live to drive some more, for now. But instead of going along with this, he decides to get the fuck out of there. Less worried by the cop since learning that vampires exist, Benny finds the parking lot cop and tries to convince him to check out the crime scene. He is promptly arrested, which he’s also okay with. Until the cop tries to put him in the trunk. (The cop’s in on the consenting sucking situation.)
Blaire saves him again by interrupting the cop. Zoe is carrying another bag of cash and the two stop the cop from taking Benny. Benny again tries to run away, but Zoe catches up to him in literally the blink of an eye.
We do some bare-bones characterization for bad guy Victor. He keeps humans in glass boxes so that he can have their blood on tap. Let’s not think about the maintenance that would actually require - what cleaning service would he even hire? Anyway, Victor meets with two bad bitch boss vampire queens and they talk about how he broke the truce and how that’s bad. As they sip cocktails and lounge outside of a multi-million dollar house high in the hills that overlook Los Angeles, he complains about rules, then kills both of the bosses offscreen.
We get another Blaire-led exposition dump to explain everything to poor Benny, who is, as always, the last in the loop. The deal is that Victor is taking over the LA territory. Zoe is his girlfriend and Blaire is Zoe’s friend, so they’re down. Victor runs four party spots but now he’s blowing them up to take over. Like the bosses in a video game, basically. Blaire and Zoe usually go to these spots to collect cash, but now they’re going there to take lives. If they can bust all four spots in a single night and meet with Victor at the fifth spot, Victor can easily take over.
Blaire says that Victor offered Jay a different kind of truce - for Jay & crew to turn against the vampires first. To work with Victor so that he could be in charge. Why Victor thought that was a good plan makes no sense. Jay runs the Boyle Heights crew and knows how to kill vampires, so that’s the reason given as to why Victor originally wanted Jay. Even though Victor could have easily killed him the other night when he killed the rest of the crew and took Maria. This whole exchange is just hearsay, by the way. We don’t see it. But anyway, Jay said no to that so now Victor wants to kill him.
Then Blaire gives Benny a hit of a joint laced with angel dust because apparently, that’s how she stays so chill.
Speaking of Jay, we see him & crew very late on the trail of Blaire and Zoe, following up on Victor’s plans. They’re at the site of the first party. Jay has an interview with a vampire and then decides that they need even more boys to handle what’s coming next.
Benny’s on to party number three, at an exclusive club downtown. Of course, Blaire and Zoe continue to be VIPs and he’s forced to follow them in when he sees his crush standing in line with a group of friends. Her boyfriend clowns on Benny for having a job even though his girl was just asking Benny for help getting them all into the club. Here Blaire saves Benny again - his pride this time - by laying a long kiss on him to shut everyone down. Benny follows her in like a puppy-dog, leaving his crush and her guy to eat crow. By this time, we can tell that he and Blaire are very into each other.
Jay and an even larger crew are also downtown. They’re in the alley that leads to the back entrance of the same club that Benny and the vamps have just entered. This party isn’t one that the women are expecting - the vampire boss is already dead. Standing in his place is some guy that controls a legion of nighttime crossbow wielders. They’re called the Night Legion. The women are surrounded - and it’s Benny’s turn to save Blaire. He smashes a bottle of champagne on the mystery host’s head, and the vampires spring into action, taking out a roomful of assassins. After that, Benny and them jet.
Jay just misses the party but spots Benny with the two women as they’re leaving. He’s confused as to why his little brother is there, but he runs into some vampire troubles of his own. He doesn’t catch up to Benny, who’s just now coming around to the fact that he’s going to have to face Victor at the end of the night. The Night Legion reappears and takes more crossbow shots at the vampire women (mostly missing) and Benny speeds them away to safety, clueless that he’s leaving his brother behind. He takes them somewhere safe: home. Where he and his grandma live.
This affords more exposition and a cute interaction with Blaire, Benny, and Abuela. Abuela likes Blaire. Zoe would rather kill them all for the inconvenience but Victor talks her down over a phone call.
Victor and Jay have a dinner scene together where they review their current plot points. Broken truce, murdered innocents, dead vampires. A suspiciously juicy steak. We learn that a bullet to the head does next to nothing to a well-fed vampire, oh and that Maria’s dead. She’s…she’s a steak now. I guess it’s only silver that does it for vampires, and we’ve seen a silver knife or two in the movie but it’s not ever really made a big deal of.
Two more stops: one last party, then to Victor’s. This last party is a party of one with a weird vampire named Rocko. He gives off creepy intimidating sexual vibes that put my teeth on edge. Like, something about the performance is just a bit gross. Probably because he’s a personal space invader. Blaire and Benny get some MORE alone time while Zoe deals with this last bit of business. It’s another opportunity for carnage and a bit of Benny and Blaire smooching. By now, there’s a clear distinction between Blaire and Zoe’s outlook and motivations. But Blaire is no slouch when it comes to also kicking ass when Rocko’s backup arrives. Night Legion shows up again, and Zoe catches a crossbow to the gut. Benny pulls the car around and gets them all to safety. Now on to Victor’s. The sun is peeking over the hills of LA, so we know we’re almost out of time.
It’s time for the final confrontation now. Benny has completed his task to gold-star perfection and brought the vampire women all the way back to Victor’s house. Blaire advises Benny to take the car and go but he decides to take a stand against Victor in order to save his brother. Well, I guess Jay is his half-brother. Which I guess goes in the column of Reasons Why Benny Doesn’t Know Shit. What’s not explained - and I checked - is how Benny knows that Victor has Jay. I mean, Blaire tells him after their last makeout session, but how does she know that? I guess how she knows everything else that happens off-screen. It’s her superpower of exposition.
Despite Victor tasking Zoe with keeping Benny with her, he seems to be a little surprised that Benny is there. He even asks “what are you doing here?”. Blaire is uncomfortable because she likes Benny, who’s trying to trade his life for Jay’s - Jay, who is locked in a glass box with his blood on tap for Victor’s consuming pleasure. Victor starts making dinner plans, Blaire stands up for Benny and Zoe gets a bit jelly. After all the killing for Victor she’s done, she gets all weepy at the idea that Blaire won’t be her friend anymore. Some dumb things happen, Zoe dies and then Jay gets loose - somehow - and Victor is defeated. Not before Benny gets bit, though.
So now that the plot is resolved and the conflict is over, the movie goes on for another five minutes to establish that Jay is still sad about his dead girlfriend and maybe wants to be a Night Legionnaire and that Benny is a super-cool vampire who still keeps up with his studies by going to night school. And of course, he and Blaire end up together. Totally cool with all the stone-cold murdering she did before. She’s like, a better person because of Benny maybe.
Now that the credits are rolling, do I question the logic of the characters? Sure! Do I think the filmmakers made some questionable choices? Also yes.
For Instance:
There are some mixed messages about elitism regarding the vampires.
I’m assuming that they’re supposed to represent the 1%. The ultra-wealthy. The “my boat docks in my yacht like a Russian nesting doll” wealthy. Like oil baron, stock-trading congressman wealthy. But Night Teeth only shows these people preying on the rich. The dumb “country club” and “bottle service” rich. What the retail marketing execs call “aspiration wealth”. These semi-rich people pay to let vampires give them a suck. And maybe the vampires pay for the easy access to consenting food. The boss vampires rake in the money from this racket, but every vampire is super-rich.
The conflict is that Victor, who’s only rich-rich but not a true 1% blood tycoon - wants to take over LA and feed on the unwilling. For the thrill, I guess, because the entire operation would be much much messier, right? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Anyway, this framing makes it seem like we’re kind of supposed to root for the status quo. Night Teeth isn’t not about wealth; wealth is mentioned in the opening voiceover. But this interpretation of the metaphor suggests that it’s in our best interest that the 1% and the rich keep doing what they’re doing because it’s better than if someone like Victor takes over because then it will affect the regular people like you and me.
Which isn’t how wealth hoarding works. At all.
Like this but imagine it’s blood.
To put it shortly: Night Teeth maybe should have shown more vampires directly preying on the vulnerable who consent out of either fear or desperation. And maybe show that rich people pay lots of money to the vampires as like a sex kink thing, but also show that the vampires have wage slaves that they pay a few paltry bucks per hour to sit around and be drained at will for hours a day. Right? Like real life?
I wish they’d put more emphasis on the importance of breaking the status quo. Of people needing to rise up against all of the bloodsuckers and their secret social circle. Instead, they’re glamorized and hell, I’m even conditioned to refer to them as elite when really, they’re parasites. And in the end, instead of Benny preserving his humanity and gaining a sense of “from the people, for the people”, he is sucked up into the upwardly-mobile engine of aspirational wealth. He becomes that bottom-level “rich by association” kind of person, and he’s happy. Which isn’t to say that it’s unrealistic - lots of people want to be rich and it’s easier to work on making yourself rich than to fight the good fight of a better, safer, lifestyle for your fellow humans.
Night Teeth does take the steps to establish that Benny, Jay, and all of Boyle Heights are solidly working-class people, so it’s definitely a theme that they’re going for. A core component of Benny’s character is that he needs money and wants to be wealthy.
My first impression on a re-watch is why are they poor? You’d think that a family of vampire hunters would have some kind of lucrative cover, or that they’d be extorting the vampires. At least a little. Like if you can’t eat the rich, you could at least extort them. Maybe in the form of fairly-leveled taxes that would create and support social programs for millions of people or whatever.
I also had a hard time wrapping my head around the extent of Benny’s ignorance. I guess he and Jay have different dads and it’s Jay’s dad that’s from the vampire-hunting clan and it’s none of Benny’s business until it is. It’s a bit unnecessarily complicated to me, but sure. Jay and his crew do this out of the goodness of their hearts but it kills me that Jay literally has to find someone to cover his shift because he’s trying to save LA from a hostile vampire takeover. Like he’s really mad at some guy that called in and instead of One: Being mad at whoever runs the company because they’re short-staffed or Two: Canceling the service because a whole section of your crew was murdered in cold blood and it might be more important to deal with that than to drive some rich asshole around, Jay opts for Three: Let Benny cover for him under his name. Even though he’s obviously a wanted man. Because I guess he’s THAT hard-up for money.
It’s a bit much, but I work for a living so I get it. The pressure to not call out is insane. Even if you’re like, saving your entire city.
Like this rich vs poor dichotomy, the script obviously takes some shortcuts with characterizing everyone. Benny gets the nerd treatment. If he were a woman, he’d have thick glasses and frizzy hair and be unaware of how beautiful he is.
WTF did natural hair ever do to anyone??
He’s kind of pathetic, too - his school crush is a woman who he has barely any interaction with, but he seems to get weak in the knees when she looks his way. And she very much has a boyfriend who is always around and takes special pleasure in reminding Benny that he’s dating the girl he likes. You might think that maybe she’s cool but she definitely tries to use her pull over Benny when she asks if he can help them get into the club.
These “opportunistically flirty” women exist, but I’m not a fan of making that kind of woman a villain or an obstacle for Benny to get over. It’s a very “nice guy” take. In a movie with literal monsters it kind of sucks to be like “yeah, girls are fake and just want stuff from you without even wanting to kiss you or whatever”. Like, maybe the problem is with Benny doing anything for the approval of a girl - which is what Night Teeth kinda boils down to.
Benny ends up driving Blaire and Zoe from massacre to massacre. Both of these women are white and I only mention that because when it comes to taking characterization shortcuts, Night Teeth goes straight for the throat: The vampires are overwhelmingly very very white and rich. The Boyle Heights vampire hunters seem like a Hispanic LA street gang. You can’t really inject diversity into a demographic that realistically is all one race or culture, so if they want to go for the close-knit family culture of an LA-based family, then it makes sense to have the actors be majority Hispanic. And if you’re going for bloodsucking rich people, I can see why the instinct is to keep everyone white. But I mean…they didn’t have to. The vampire side could have been a bit more diverse, especially when we learn that Zoe turned Blaire in the seventies. It’s not like Underworld where their aristocracy was all from Medieval England. White people didn’t invent royalty or hierarchy and they don’t have a monopoly on engaging in Capitalism. Obviously, they benefit the most from it, but still. Maybe there are some background vampires of color, but none of our main vamps are.
Anyway, Blaire is the gentler of the two (and actress Debby Ryan looks like a doe-eyed Disney princess, so that helps), and she and Benny immediately hit it off. Zoe is unstable and all out of fucks to give. You can pretty much predict right from their first scene together what the dynamic between the three will mean for the end of the story, but that’s okay.
Night Teeth is supposed to be FUN. It’s got this interesting lore with the pact and the vampire factions. It’s visually stunning, all neon brights on black. Very slick. Even the daylight scenes incorporate Boyle Heights as a colorful backdrop as Benny skateboards past bright murals and a spraypainted warehouse. At night, the world of Night Teeth’s vampires is the world of fast money. Not just old-world opulence. It’s the flashy “new money” feel of a group that didn’t inherit their wealth but took it by force through corruption and exploitation. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these vampires shot themselves up into the atmosphere in a rocket. In space, it’s always night.
We’re following Benny, this fish-out-of-water from a very humble background, who we know is impressed by money and fame and most importantly girls - and he’s getting a taste of a lifestyle that is way out of his reach. But once he realizes that shit’s going down and that the women he’s driving around are vampires, he makes very reasonable attempts to leave. He tries to go to the police, who turn out to be corrupt (surprise surprise) then he tries to make a run for it. So it’s not like he’s like, “Wow Blaire is so pretty, maybe she’ll like me if I play along”, he does try to dip. He doesn’t have zero agency.
When he chooses to bust a bottle on that Night Legionnaire’s head he doesn’t really know what’s going on. He’s got no idea of what the stakes are. It’s not like he had any idea about vampires before this night. Jay never told him anything! And he’s high on angel dust! He also happens to like Blaire. How is any of this his fault? I mean, he does earn some extended eye contact with Blaire, so. Worth it? From Benny’s perspective, yeah. Because he’s pathetic. His professor makes fun of him, his crush’s boyfriend makes fun of him, his brother makes fun of him. I mean, damn. This is the first thing that’s ever happened to him that makes him feel cool and even a little powerful. That’s what he wants! He’s concerned about his brother and the fact that some vampire named Victor is after him but he doesn’t know enough about anything to be effective. He’s got so few resources that even the car he’s driving isn’t his. The job he’s doing isn’t even his job. My man’s got nothing going on.
But the best thing about the whole club sequence is when Jay is in the club and sees Benny leaving (post-Night Legion massacre), Jay and the whole posse pull guns on a vampire bouncer - and no one in the club reacts. Like, nobody. And then Jay knifes the vampire and it does the whole Blade-style turn to ashes thing and it’s so great. The vampire just curls up backwards on himself like a snake doing a death roll. This is obviously a comedy.
You’re supposed to laugh.
If I were a vampire, I’d be a shut-in. Humans at least have the chance to survive a stab to the heart, but you’re saying that I’ll just turn to ash? Same thing with sunlight? There’s no sunburn phase, just straight to dust? No lifesaving measures available? I would be in an underground mansion getting the vampire version of Uber Eats every day. That would be my life. Or, my undead existence.
But maybe that doesn’t make you laugh; maybe you just cringe because everything is so ridiculous. For example, Jay’s girlfriend (Maria) gets kidnapped early on in the movie by Victor. She’s on-screen for like, two minutes. But we’re just supposed to care about her. Why? Then later they do that Rocky Horror Picture Show thing where Victor is eating this wet steak while talking to Jay and then he’s like “Maria. What a tender subject. Would you like a bite?” Come on. That’s hilarious. Do vampires even eat people? Is that a thing? I thought they just drink blood! Was he doing it just for laughs? He butchered and cooked a person-steak just for a joke. That’s fucked up.
Megan Fox is also in this movie for like two minutes. I just love how silly it is that all of the vampires sound like they’re teenagers. And act like they’re teenagers. Megan Fox one hundred percent memorized her lines in five minutes and delivered them in one, maybe two, takes. She just doesn’t give a shit, and it’s great. That’s not to say that her performance is bad, it just feels like it could have been improv.
YouTuber Amanda the Jedi has a great video on Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body and Till Death, (both of which kick ass) and really opened my eyes to how dirty Hollywood did Megan Fox. So when I see her deliver these lines dripping with disdain, I feel it in my bones. Love her. And the outfit she’s wearing? Black bodysuit with a black and gold hooded cape and knee-high high-heeled boots? That’s what I want to wear. Like all the time. Like at home, if I’m not wearing my bathrobe. I’d want to be wearing that.
I also love how fucking chaotic Zoe starts off. She really embodies an “I hate everyone except my bestie” vibe and I can get behind that. They frame Zoe as being that special brand of reckless white girl crazy like she’s either off her meds or needs to be on some but it doesn’t really matter because she’s not ever going to face any real consequences for her actions. Like the irreverence for everything outside of her circle is turned up to an 11. That’s Zoe.
Like her or hate her, she’s having fun.
What’s interesting to me is that the actresses for Zoe and Blaire actually swapped roles. I think each actress really fits their character, so it was a good move. Both of their characters are cute and deadly and I’m all about it. I think every woman would love to be this power-packed, un-fucking-stoppable force that could grant you eternal life or flip out and murder a room full of armed men. It’s really common in fiction for this to be possible, to the point where women don’t really understand how much stronger men actually are. There are whole threads I’ve read online about women play-wrestling with their partners, but being surprised to the point of terror when their partner shows them just how naturally stronger men are than women. So a whole separate fantasy from being an undead blood-drinking ultra-rich immortal - is being a woman who is faster and stronger and more deadly than any man they encounter.
Like this but without the need to justify a woman’s strength by her proximity to a deadly weapon! That’s the dream!
What I don’t like is that at the end of the day, Zoe is doing all this for a man.
BOOOOOOO.
Her relationship with Blaire has an air of co-dependency. She’s cool and confident but really is looking for approval and is shaken by the thought that Blaire would walk away from her. It’s a toxic relationship that has enough dynamic on its own to be tense because Zoe and Blaire are growing apart. Night Teeth did not need for Zoe to be fucking crying on a phone call to Victor, doing all his dirty work while he…whatever he was doing. Making Maria-steaks and blood cocktails. Driving his fancy car. Whatever. They did not have to do Zoe like that. She could have had her own ambitions and Victor could have been her business partner. She should have been majorly shit-talking him on that call, like “Listen motherfucker, what are you doing to help us out with this? I need you to pull your weight because we got the Boyle Heights vampire hunters and the Night Legion up our ass.” She should’ve been completely fierce the whole way through. And in the end, when Blaire turns on her, she would have had her own motivation to kill Blaire. The emotions would have hit harder.
Then again, she could’ve still been like, “You know what Blaire, I have an eternity to be rich. But I don’t know how much time I get to be your friend”, and she could have been down with Blaire til the very end. She should’ve died protecting Blaire, not turning on her because her boyfriend told her to. But noooo.
They had to have Zoe’s toxic ass stab Blaire. Victor even physically puts the knife in Zoe’s hand. Then Benny pulls a Jesus pose as the car-trap he planted breaks through the wall of Victor’s mansion, letting the sunlight in behind him, which toasts Zoe. The same sunlight is used by Jay to kill Victor. Which is exactly why my mansion would be underground. Wasn’t the whole point of Victor recruiting Jay because “Jay knows how to kill vampires”? You mean the fucking sun? I think everyone knows that. Anyway, the boys save the day (which, after a whole movie of the women fucking up the town with ease, is a let-down. Blaire should’ve been able to kill Victor all on her own and she should’ve helped save Jay.)
Whatever. As I said, it’s predictable but that’s okay because it’s fun and the performances are all great. There are so many dumb jokes littered through Night Teeth, too. Like when Victor is sitting down with Megan Fox and her vampire partner (Sydney Sweeney) calls for help - Victor pulls an ear out of his pocket - security earpiece included - and wiggles it. “You’re going to have to speak up.” Victor overall isn’t characterized to be anything other than Generic Bad Guy Who Makes Corny Jokes. People are saying that the dialogue is forced and terrible, but One, I like bad jokes. Two, it gets the point across; and Three, I don’t know about you, but most conversations I have with people are forced and terrible. I’m sorry, it’s not Midnight Mass. Okay? It’s not trying to make you think. It’s just trying to set things up and pay them off. Was Blaire kissing Benny outside of the club in front of his crush and her buster-ass boyfriend and friends a little cliche and on the nose? Yes. But even though you were rolling your eyes out the back of your head didn’t you see that as a win for Benny? Yes? Then that’s all it’s trying to do. It’s hitting the beats and moving on.
People are mad that Benny fell for Blaire and got turned into a vampire at the end. So what? They say he turned his back on his family and the family legacy for a pretty white girl. Gotta tell you, he wouldn’t be the first and he won’t be the last. And he’s a vampire because he would have died, it wasn’t just for fun. And before this one night, he didn’t know about the family legacy - Jay’s family legacy, not his - so how could he betray it? It’s like if someone (not a member of your family) told you that your family has sworn to never go to Japan but you found out about this on your flight out there. And then you really, really, liked Japan. Maybe your family has a good reason, but how would you know that? And again, Benny is very susceptible to being seduced by this kind of lifestyle because he wants to be rich and famous. He wants the power and self-possession to have all the things that he’d never have otherwise. Why is that bad? It just kind of is what it is.
That’s the heart of why I like Night Teeth: it’s not trying to be anything it’s not. It’s not trying to be philosophical or deep. It’s not doing anything new with vampires. It’s not trying to distract you with lore, characterization, or even plot. It is a very surface-level movie. So that’s what they took care of. Night Teeth is polished to a shine and I love looking at it. Even the credits are neon and fun. It’s an all-in-one night movie that cares about the journey way more than the destination, and the view is half the pleasure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun movie to hate on and it’s easy to do. But it’s also really easy to look past the plotholes and leaps in logic when the point is to just have a good time. It’s like ranting about the pointlessness of rollercoasters. It’s just for the thrill? But it should make sense - it doesn’t even take you anywhere! You stand in lines for an hour just for a two-minute ride? How dumb!
To be fair, I don’t like rollercoasters, but that’s beside the point.
People thrashing this movie like it was trying to be anything other than an exercise in executing a good-looking, well-shot, film that carries a distinct and consistent style and vibe throughout - is yelling into the wind. It’s okay to just have fun sometimes without the movie having to be an over-the-top shoot-em-up. Night Teeth makes me want to put on black clothes, take a few shots of vodka, slap on some makeup, and have a good time like the night’s never gonna end.