Awfully Good: Vampire Dentist

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

As we prepare to see Johnny Depp put on his fangs in DARK SHADOWS, I decided to search for the worst vampire movie ever made. There were many obvious candidates—DRACULA 2000, VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN, any of the TWILIGHT movies—but I wanted something truly atrocious and special.

Unfortunately, I succeeded.

Vampire Dentist (2006)

Director: Christine Whitlock
Stars: James Pettitt, Trevor Crane, David Squires

Is there a plot?

Two young dentists with no money or talent are about to get evicted from their crappy garage office, when a mysterious man offers to rent their shop at night to start his own dental practice. But for some reason all of his patients have very long, pointy teeth…

What’s the damage?

Nothing you can imagine comes close to the offensive lameness of VAMPIRE DENTIST. It’s even worse than VAMPIRE ASSASSIN, which I never thought could be possible. It is with no exaggeration when I say I am absolutely speechless to describe this movie. The filmmakers call it “a campy B+-style, cleavage and legs, horror-comedy-erotic, no-budget feature film geared to young males 13 – 25.” A more honest description would be “a crappy F- style, middle age cleavage, horror-travesty, no-budget feature failure geared to people with sadomasochistic tendencies.” This is something even Troma would scoff at.

I don’t think the filmmakers understand the difference between “vampire” and “TWILIGHT fan.”

I don’t even know where to begin. Maybe the no-value production? VAMPIRE DENTIST was made on random weekends when the cast and crew could get together. It was clearly shot in someone’s garage (you can see the garage door in the background!) and they couldn’t even be bothered to clean out the trash, cleaning supplies and pieces of lumber before filming. They just set down some lawn chairs and called it a dentist’s office. Aside from that, the vampires use toy fangs you can buy at the store, most of which clearly don’t fit correctly. The makeup is so laughable that even the non-bloodsucker guys still look like they’re wearing eye shadow and lipstick. And instead of, you know, waiting until the sun goes down as it has every day since Earth’s existence, they just filmed all the nighttime scenes during the day and put a filter in front of the lens to poorly simulate the dark.

Cinematography. Let me show you it.

As for the story, I can’t really make fun of it because it doesn’t exist. The entire movie is comprised of different wacky characters visiting the dentist office, a vampire attack outside, and repeat for 90 excruciating minutes. I think at some point the vampire dentist is threatened by a rival vampire gang and falls in love with a blind girl who can’t see how laughable his costume is, but there’s still nothing resembling a basic story structure. Title cards are present, not to provide the location or time like they typically would, but to share important plot points like “Evening dental office opens.” There’s also the weird “narrator”—who doesn’t necessarily narrate the movie or provide any meaningful information. He exists only so that any time there’s a vampire attack, the movie can immediately cut to him making an unfunny one liner or offhanded comment. (“That…bites.”)That is the entirety of his role. He’s actually the one character in the film who’s legitimately creepy; not because of his vampire status, but because he looks like he molests children regularly.

I think I’ve seen this guy dancing alone at every nightclub I’ve ever been to.

Did I mention that VAMPIRE DENTIST is supposed to be a comedy? I’m not even sure what’s meant to be funny here. Maybe characters with names like Dr. Moe Lars, Dr. Pierce Able or Drek Vam Dent. Perhaps it’s the fact that the doctors use jackhammers and shotguns as dental tools, or expose their genitals to their patients. Or I guess it could be the fart jokes and fat jokes, except there aren’t really “jokes”—just farts and overweight people the filmmakers think must automatically be hilarious. In case you don’t know when to laugh, they also provide random cartoon sound effects to hype up the zany hilarity.

(insert cricket noises here)

Despite what this column suggests, I don’t enjoy disparaging the efforts of aspiring filmmakers. It’s not an easy task to get a movie made (no matter how big the budget) and at the end of the day we’re all film fans one and the same. That being said, director Christine Whitlock really is like the less talented spawn of Ed Wood. She clearly has no idea about the technical aspects filmmaking, let alone the basic elements of storytelling. Before you start shooting a film, make sure you have not just a plot, but a point. If you’re answer to “Why am I making a movie?” is “So I can hang out with all my friends and put them all in it!” then you are doing something wrong. And that’s seriously what this feels like: people hanging out and messing around with a camcorder at home. Except it’s available on Netflix and I had to watch it.

We can only hope that somehow, somewhere, at this very moment, this kid is getting punched in the face.

“Best” Line

Since the script to this movie is so bad, the only good lines are the hilarious hissing sounds the vampires make at each other.

“Best” Parts

1) Some of the pathetic vampire attacks and the funny/creepy commentary from the “narrator.”

2) This is essentially what you can expect in this movie: penis jokes, fart jokes and fat jokes. All poorly executed.

Nudity Watch

Don’t let the “erotic” part of the description fool you. Since the director clearly gave roles to any poor soul who wanted it, most of the promised cleavage belongs to middle aged women who should be wearing turtlenecks.