Mental Caries: A Look Inside A Decaying Mind

As a horror fan, when you lay down on the seat to have a dentist drill your mouth for cavities or pick at your teeth for plaque, you probably think about that movie The Dentist. I know I did, though funnily enough I never was afraid of the dentist because of it. No, when I saw this movie (when I was about 11 or 12) all I could think about was how vulnerable my teeth and gums really where. The entire well being of my teeth lied within the hands of my dentist and if he wanted to, he could make me ware braces the rest of my life. I wasn’t scared of my dentist drilling my teeth to bits but rather scared of the idea that he could. Then again, my dentist was a divorcee who turned to the bottle and was suspended of his license when people complained about his alcoholism and shaky hands. Though, this isn’t nearly as bad as Dr. Alan Feinstone. See, the way I remembered The Dentist was that it was a movie with gratuitous teeth torture and a lot of chasing but what the film really is, is an underrated film that drills into the mind of a psychopath. I’d go further into saying that it has the possibility of ranking up there with Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.

The story centers around a very successful dentist named Alan Feinstone. He’s got it all: a beautiful loving wife, a thriving practice and a respectable reputation within the dentistry community. However, when he comes to suspect that his wife may be cheating on him with the pool boy, he discovers that behind every smile of bright white teeth there is decay hard at work. Now, as he slowly begins to loose his grip on sanity, Feinstone begins to try to reason things out but his mind won’t let him. It isn’t long until he decides to slip completely off the deep end and kill those who have done him wrong and those who lie within his path. But the plot goes deeper into Alan’s psyche because once we realize that he is insane, we begin to suspect that perhaps his wife isn’t having an affair but that it might be in his head. Thankfully, in the end of it all, it’s up to you to decide whether all of it was fake or in his head.

So, how, exactly, does the film get inside the mind of Alan Feinstone? It’s very simple. Yuzna does a masterful job at utilizing filters and camera tricks to show Alan’s decent into madness. The entire movie has this ‘Pleasantville’ look; bright colors, luminescent profiles, heavenly whites and bright blue skies but every time we see Feinstone thinking about things… it’s distorted or showing him looking at himself in a mirror. It’s rather genius how they contrast the bright, glamorous lifestyle of a successful Beverly Hills dentist with the distorted, stylized camera angles. That would mean that this movie is visually satisfying and really adds to the distortion of Alan’s mind. It’s a pretty obvious technique to use image distortion and camera filters to show mental insanity but not many people utilize it. There is also the use of close-ups of grease stains, rotting teeth and mud. We are flung into Feinstone’s head as he watches, in disgust, as the pool boy sullies his wife’s clean face. The scary thing is, as the audience, we can’t help but feel disgusted as well, especially when we see brown rotting teeth. Considering Corbin’s performance is already strong, these camera effects only further Feinstone’s character.

Speaking of Feinstone’s character, what makes him such a great candidate for psychological profiling? As I mentioned before, I ranked this film up there with Psycho and Silence and for good reason. Both of those films have such a captivating yet charismatic character that can be analyzed for mental illness and Feinstone is no exception. In fact, I’d have to include Misery on that list as well. What is so captivating about Feinstone is that he is our anti-hero and we aren’t really given the opportunity to bond with the ‘final girl’ or any other character. We right away follow him from his grim discovery of his wife’s affair all the way till the end when he is sent to an institution. In that regard, I love how the film opens up with him addressing us on how everybody has a story. Going deeper into Feinstone’s head we right away understand that he is unstable because he flipped out over his wife for ironing the wrong shirt since his cufflinks didn’t match. Upon seeing his wife engaging in ‘first base’ activities with the pool boy we feel for Feinstone and we start to understand why he hates decay and he lies the metaphor for what Feinstone’s psyche is based on. His wife, dressed in clean white clothes, kisses the pool boy who rubs brown dirt all over her legs. It’s such a perfect metaphor for the act of dirtying perfection and causing decay and plaque. This drives Feinstone over the edge and at first he thinks about killing himself and he becomes sympathetic because he tries so hard to fight his hallucinations, and we watch as he helplessly descends into madness. He begins to think that everybody has dirty teeth, which may be a metaphor for how everybody has dirty secrets but wear masks of innocents. Perhaps he believes that it’s his job to clean up people’s immoral filth.

Throughout the film, Feinstone mumbles to himself on how dentists are underappreciated no matter how hard they work. He brings up a great quote that states how they have to clean people’s teeth and yet we, the patients, hate them for it. It’s very true because we all hate going to the dentist, especially at a young age but yet we don’t realize that the dentist is actually a great person to have around. Our teeth are one of the most important things in our bodies. When Feinstone finally decides to enact his homicidal revenge on his wife and the pool boy, it’s the defining moment and the point of no return. By this point, Alan becomes a full-fledged psychopath and believes that he has to rid plaque-infested human there is. It’s a rather grim but sad turn of events since we were with Feinstone all the way up until this point. It’s a rather tragic turn of events. This is where we get into the really grisly teeth torture where he drills people’s teeth apart, slices tongues and mutilates gums and lips. I couldn’t take these scenes because I have sensitive teeth and to see somebody’s gums ripped to shreds makes me queasy. By this point, Ken Foree says it best, “He’s a man driven over the edge.” All the pressure of taxes, a failing marriage and a reputation to hold up has put so much pressure on him that he finally snapped.

As far as comparing it to when I was a kid, it’s vastly different from what I remembered. Shockingly, I can’t believe that I didn’t have nightmares of teeth torture and dentistry. I was never afraid of my dentist but I hated going to him because of all the fluoride I had to keep in my mouth and the fact that I couldn’t eat for an hour after getting my teeth cleaned. I remember very fondly some of the dental torture and that beautifully shot scene where Feinstone was slashing the pool boy (pictured above). The rest of the film sort of escaped my head for some reason. Looking back on it, if you couldn’t tell, I love this movie but not because of dental horror but rather the characterization. At a young age it was obvious that I didn’t give two shits about Feinstone, I just wanted blood and action. Now, I think Feinstone, while he was thinking about plaque and decay are the best parts of the movie.

All these musing lead me to believe that The Dentist isn’t a typical horror movie. There are no monsters, the killer doesn’t pop out of the closet and there isn’t a ghost haunting anybody. No, this is a hard-boiled film that follows one man’s descent into insanity. Of course there are is blood and the occasional jump scare but otherwise, this movie is horrifying in it’s own right. It’s horrifying because of how Feinstone’s mind works. He’s the perfect psychopath because he believes he is doing good and isn’t aware that he is actually butchering people, and that is the worst kind of monster. In turn, The Dentist is a smart movie that really puts the viewer into Feinstone’s head and offers no sympathy for when things go terribly wrong. It’s a highly underrated movie that has the potential of being one of the most disturbing horror movies out there. In the end, it makes you want to power rub your teeth with alcohol and sandpaper.

Shutter Island: The Light in the Fog

WARNING: There are major spoilers in this post.

Today I want to elaborate on something that my buddy pointed out about Shutter Island and as I watched the movie unfold and I watched how the twist was revealed I started to dissect the beginning and end scenes of the movie. Then it hit me like a sold gold brick to my head and (keep in mind, I was at a restaurant when this happened) I yelled, “Marty you bastard!” It was after that, when I realized that I loved this movie. Also, as a side note, when I sincerely love a director I like to verbally bully him with my friends. Ex: I love composer John Williams so when I hear his scores I say, “John you bald sonofabitch! You did it again!”

Anyway, onto the post at hand. The beginning of Shutter Island opens up on the ocean as a boat makes it way out of the fog. The ocean is calm and the general tone of the scene is gray, grim, dark and very foreboding. The fog is thick, white and you can barely see anything, which is perfect for what this scene implies. At this point Teddy is going to the island for the investigation and to find Andrew Laeddis but he does not realize that he is Laeddis so he still believes that he is Teddy Daniels, US Marshal.

At the very end of the movie, when Cawley and Chuck (who turned out to be the psychiatrist for Andrew) confront Andrew and tell him that he is not Teddy, they mention that they have to hear him say that he is not Ted Daniels so that they could avoid giving him a lobotomy. They go on to mention that his brain is in a loop and that one day he’ll know he’s Laeddis and the other he’ll think he is Teddy. Well, he tells them that he is Andrew and that there is no Teddy and the next day he says to Chuck that he is Marshal Daniels; implying that he still thinks he’s Teddy. Chuck signals Cawley to proceed with the lobotomy but Andrew says, “Do you want to live as a monster or die a hero?” As the staff takes Andrew away Chuck yells, “Teddy, wait!” but Andrew doesn’t look back. This implies that Andrew was playing Chuck and the staff; he set them up to believe that he still believes he is Teddy Daniels just so they could lobotomize him. He understands he is a dangerous person and the only other way to cure him is lobotomy.

Note: This is not the end shot. This just a picture of the lighthouse.

The end shot is a shot of the lighthouse, where the suspected lobotomies and mind control take place, sitting atop the rocks on a calm day. The tone of this shot is very relaxing but still very tense, gloomy and unsatisfying. However, the clouds of the storm are starting to pass so there is a little bit of blue sky peering out of the clouds; another great symbol for a cloudy mind beginning to clear up. Here the lighthouse symbolizes Andrew’s closure point… he knows he is a monster and he understands that he must be ‘cured,’ so the lighthouse is almost like point of enlightenment.

But lets also look at the beginning and end shots and see how they relate to each other. Think of the boat floating through the fog as Andrew’s mind: it’s cloudy, it’s murky and you can’t see what’s in front of you. You can’t see the shore because it’s blocked by delusion. Now, what to lighthouses usually do? They guide ships and boats to shore by providing them the only light in a fog-covered bay. The lighthouse image at the end is helping Andrew guide his way through his foggy mind to shore, or in this case help him get cured. It’s poetic and it proves that Shutter Island is a very beautifully shot movie.

Horror vs. Psychological Thriller/Drama

What exactly is a horror movie? Well, as much as many people don’t like Wikipedia as a source, I have to agree with their definition of a horror film… they “are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central villain.” However, there are movies that use elements of horror to further stretch the plot or to make the movie more realistic. Normally, they are called psychological thrillers or just thrillers but something that has always caused controversy are the movies the fall on both the horror side of genre and the drama/thriller side of genre. There are some movies that I want to point out, to me, that should not be considered horror movies.

I do want to note that not every horror fan will agree on these charges. These are based on some research that I have done and looking on top 10 ‘horror’ movies lists.

First there is the psychological drama or thriller films that seem to always have a reputation of being a horror film. Films like, The Silence of the Lambs, Frailty, American Psycho and Hard Candy seem to be associated with the horror genre. Though I will agree that Silence does have depictions of blood, cannibalism and some jump out moments I don’t think it’s a horror movie. It’s a drama, it’s a crime drama and crime often involves these sorts of things. Hard Candy, I didn’t really get scared at all and the only shock value of that movie was the castration. American Psycho, it has lots of blood and violence but I see it more of a drama or a character study.

When you have films like Frailty or Seven, sure they have some pretty creepy imagery and some haunting scenes but in no way should it be a horror. I think it’s a horror themed drama/thriller. It’s real life horror but I don’t think it provokes the audience as much. However, Frailty is pretty close.

Then we have a confusion of sci-fi with horror, which, I can’t blame because some sci-fi crosses over smoothly with horror like The X-Files, Virus or Alien but movies like A Clockwork Orange, Aliens, Cloverfield and District 9… they are mainly sci-fi movies or sci-fi action movies. Alien is really a slasher in space and it keeps all the elements of a slasher but Aliens is more along the lines of action then anything else. I don’t know why Clockwork Orange appears in so many horror film entries when it’s really a sci-fi about a dystopian society much like Logan’s Run or Bladerunner. Cloverfield and District 9 are really just sci-fi action movies and as much as Cloverfield does have some jump out points, it’s more action than anything else.

Another thing that always seems to find it’s way into the horror section are films like Shaun of the Dead, Scary Movie and the recent film Zombieland. Though I am not even going to talk about Scary Movie, films like Shaun and Zombieland are really only comedy movies. They make you laugh more than they scare you and they have more comedy elements than anything else; they horror themed comedies no comedy themed horror films. An example of a comedy themed horror movie would be Scream or in some cases A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The only reason why I did this post is because I wanted to clarify some things and to state what I thought. Of course, if you look at it, a lot of movies have horror elements to them and I pointed that out in a beloved cartoon called Toy Story… but there is a fine line between having elements of a genre and being solely part of the genre.

Other movies I don't consider horror:
Oldboy
Moon
Donnie Darko
Blade
King Kong
Earth vs. The Flying Saucers
War of the Worlds
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Pan's Labyrinth