This zombie craze

                   The Walking Dead convinced me that I should pay a little more attention to the Zombie genre. That's not why I bought Dead Island; that was because it was 10 bucks on Steam but it is why I watched Berlin Undead (Rammbock) on Netflix. Netflix has some weird stuff. Like that French zombie movie The Horde I wrote about a while ago. This German movie, sort of like that one, is only so-so.
                      We've got Michi (Michael) going to return a key to his girlfriend of seven years who recently left him and moved to Berlin. It's basically a McGuffin, I can't remember what it's for. She's not at home although the plumber is, angrily banging away at a radiator and it's quite obvious he's going to turn into a zombie. His assistant Harper shows up, the plumber goes apeshit and Michi and Harper end up locking him out in the hallway. Then the raging horde invades the apartment courtyard.
                  Technically we aren't dealing with zombies per se but rather people infected through bites with a disease that makes them foaming mad with an urge to bite (though not eat) anyone in sight.Their eyeballs go milky white and their skin gets all veiny, so, sort of zombies.
                       The tenants of the apartments can confab across the courtyard through their windows. Let's do endtime rollcall, shall we? We have Michi and Harper. We have a muscled, tattooed guy named Manfred who has obviously been bit. (He never says a word and he dies halfway through. He is my favorite character.) A weaselly dude who has "I am going to betray you as soon as you give me a chance" stamped on his forehead. Metaphorically, of course. A man who's wife has been bit. ( He's been keeping her sedated to stop the change.) Thorsten and his sister. (Of these two, if you think the named character is the one who makes it out alive, nice guess, but no.)
                       Thorsten foolishly wades into a horde of not-zombies in an attempt to close the courtyard gates. He fails and they have a zombie infestation.
                        Harper immediately starts planning to kill some bitches (I love that his first response to the zombiepocalypse is to fashion medieval death implements from cutlery) and Michi frets about the phone he dropped on the hall stairs. Someone has been attempting to call him and he worries it might be his ex Gabi. The two make a foray out to get it, Harper's homemade weapon turns out to not be zombie deterrent (seriously, there needs to be a spray), and they lose ground when they're forced to retreat to the bedroom. It is not Gabi on the phone.
                         Bit-Wife_Man offers them food (they lost the kitchen) if they get him sedatives from the crazy lady's apartment next door. Michi looks at a picture of Gabi and remembers her wearing a bear suit. He continues to fret and Harper falls asleep. When the next morning dawns Harper wakes up to Michi lying next to him wearing the bear suit complete with head. I am honestly unsure if this is an attempt at humor or sentimentality. Either way, if I were Harper I'd find that more terrifying than the zombies.
                         They break the wall so they can get into crazy druggie lady's apartment to scavenge sedatives but who should be there but crazy druggie lady herself. And guess what? She's now a not-zombie. More not-zombies rush in and Michi hides Harper on top of a wall and then scrambles into the attic. Who should he find up there but Gabi and her new man, son of crazy druggie lady. Michi throws a hissy fit because it turns out Gabi was probably cheating on him and Gabi and friend freak out because they mistake a scratch on Michi's arm for a bite. In the end they hand him sedatives and shove him out onto the roof. Michi briefly contemplates suicide before noticing a rowboat on the river. He can hear a horn out on the harbor and realizes there might be safety close by. Meanwhile, Harper has discovered that his camera flash is not-zombie kryptonite. An accidental discovery right up there with Pasteur's and Newton's I'm sure.
                     Michi makes his way to Bit-Wife-Man's place to give him the sedatives. Bit-Wife goes bonkers regardless and Michi immediately offers to brain her with a candlestick. Bit-Wife-Man declines and instead tricks his wife into tackling him off the balcony where they plummet to their death. Harper shows up driving all the not-zombies before him with his camera flash and locks them out of the courtyard.
                       The survivors gather. They only have a few scraps of food from Bit-Wife-Man's apartment because in the last day and a half everyone ran out apparently. They plan to use flashing lights to get to the river to use the boat Michi saw. Predictably, weaselly guy makes off with their supplies in the night. Michi goes after him and returns with a few lights and a fresh arm wound in the shape of teeth-marks. Sucks. He rigs a bicycle with lights so Harper and Thorsten's sister can make their getaway.
                           Michi stays in the courtyard to contemplate his future as a cuckolded not-zombie. He isn't alone for long because crazy druggie lady's son runs screaming in with crazy druggie lady attached by the teeth.Not-zombie Gabi shows up soon after and Michi hugs her to him while she paws at his back looking perplexed. Harper and Thorsten's sister make it out to the harbor where a ship honks at them, signifying rescue.

If Henry Miller weren't dead already I'd hunt him down to punch him in the mouth

I did my first bit of cataloging today. We haven't ordered any books yet, no where to put them, but they have extras to give the still being born library. The walls were knocked down today, everyone is getting displaced. People are office-less, wandering, sharing the computers in the faculty office where I've been placed. I listened to a student cry about her grade today; I just wanted to give her a hug. The fridge was moved across the street and there was a wheelchair and handicap toilet in the hallway. I think this will be the norm for a bit, though no longer than necessary with the director in charge. She knows what she wants and how to get it. For now I'll work at all the little various things that need doing and than, I'm sure, discover all the things I should have done. When things are less hectic I'll need some feedback on the books I've chosen. I think they look nice and I know they're pretty good but I don't know if they're great. I'll get better with practice.

One thing that struck me is the sort of images I'm coming across. I was looking for a free medical videos website and came across one that seemed likely. First page has a selection of stills from the archive that you can watch and one was a how-to for inserting a catheter into a man. Right smack in the middle of the page, hand gripping the goody and I hit the back button real quick while making sure no one was looking. Then I realized that they practice this stuff on dummies and there's no need for a NSFW tag. It is for work.

I've dug out Taylor's Introduction to Cataloging and Classification to take to work tomorrow so I can look up specific points about AARC2r. There is much tedious and anal work to be done.

I finished Six Geese A-Slaying. It was eh. It was bland and mainly inoffensive. Those damn city dwellers with their snootiness and their inability to deal with weather. Why, if they had weather like rural folk have weather, nothing would ever get done. They'd spend all day on the internet writing letters to the editor about how they can't be expected to work under such conditions and basically diva-ing up the place. Because everyone knows how big city Washington DC is. Drive ten minutes and you're out the other side dodging deer. And geese.

Henry Miller. Oh Henry Miller. Tropic of Cancer was quite revolutionary for its time, (mainly because of the sex), but now you can find more raunchy stuff for free with a simple Google search. Granted, you still don't find this sort of stuff in most printed matter, but it just doesn't have the same illicit feel. Back in 1934 you could get in big trouble for having something like that sent to you through the mail. (The guy who was basically in charge of America's morals was Anthony Comstock, who was batshit. Wikipedia him.) So the sex is there but the shock value that made it such a "thing" in the '30s and '40s is gone. What you're left with is wonderful, brilliant prose wrapped around a disgusting little turd of a man who thinks he's too clever for this world. Let's see, what have I written about it in my notes.

Cynic of the more annoying sort. Enjoys portraying everything as filthy and then wallowing in it. Smug, believes he sees more than most people and feels clever about it. Starts off the book by telling us about the "cunts" he's fucked and how big his dick is, if that gives you an idea. Declares he no longer has a need for societal norms, how they hold him back and mean nothing, like he's practicing the defense for his own rape trial. Inwardly mocks all his "friends" who actually work while he sponges off them.

He talks about needing to do anything to survive, like he's been done a great wrong and is just barely getting by, but refuses to work which just makes him seem silly. Actually, his entire attitude and the way he and his "friends" interact puts me more in mind of a bunch of teenagers.

Oh, and he's a misogynistic, racist pig. All women are "cunts". There are two subspecies, the slut and the whore. That's it. Of course, he has great disdain for all people not himself but his supreme contempt is saved for the ladies. Seriously, I'll usually let this slide if it's one character that's a jackass but all the men in this book talk the same way. It's a very heavy layer of I want to stomp his head in, yes. Overall he shows a very dim understanding of people.

However, the book is interesting. I just have to grit my teeth and try not to laugh at the parts that are on the emotional level of a thirteen year old.

I like the book, I'm just not wild about the author.

Watched Fritz Lang's M, a German film from 1931 . Damn that's a good movie. This was one of the first modern movies. Peter Lorre plays a child murderer who's actions have started a city wide manhunt, creating terror, suspicion and paranoia among the populace. The police have the problem that any serial killer creates; he strikes at random and people don't notice him. Eventually the criminal syndicate, angry at the increased surveillance disrupting their business, decides to catch the murderer themselves. The whole thing is well-paced and at times very tense. Lorre gives a riveting speech at the end about his compulsion. I seriously recommend this movie.

I'm actually going to miss my old place of work

One week left until I start my new job. They want me to come up with a budget before then which is bugging me. First, because I'm eager to please like that but second, because I'm still working elsewhere and I'm not being paid yet. So, we'll see. I'll come up with something but I'm not sure they understand how expensive reference books are.

And it's really muggy right now. I can deal with that though, it's the waiting that I can't stand.

I finished The Shape of Water and I think I've found a new series to enjoy. The writing was easy and the plot was different. The dead man died of natural causes but how he ended up where he was and the background shenanigans were the real mystery. There are cultural notes at the end which help with understanding Italian references.

I'm reading a number of things at the moment because when I get nervous or stressed I surround myself with books. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, The Widow Killer by Pavel Kohout, Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews and others. Donna Andrews Meg Langslow series is very funny. Meg is a blacksmith who lives in Virginia two hours south of D.C. and her family is what one might call 'wacky'. Each member brings their own brand of ridiculousness to the plot and she has to deal with extreme croquet and temperamental birds in order to solve the mystery of the day. For easy fun these books are great.

I've watched several movies as well. Infection, a Japanese horror movie about a dying hospital and a patient with a mysterious illness that begins to spread throughout the building. It's tense and the actors do a good job. The fully infected people are not shown because the directors of this movie understand that our minds are much better at the job of scaring us than make-up or CGI. The infection also seems to bring out the insecurities of the victims, making for some interesting self-reflection. Of course while they're reflecting about their weaknesses they are also often sticking themselves with dirty needles and such. The end had an interesting twist which then managed to subvert itself. The only thing I didn't get was why there were several shots of possessed swings.

Re-Cycle, a Chinese movie, had some amazing imagery. It started out as a typical Asian horror movie and ended up entirely elsewhere. An author is transported to a world where forgotten things end up and must find her way out with the help of a little girl. The settings are fantastical and dreamy and the people who inhabit them are bent and horrifying. The ending was bittersweet and then kind of confusing/scary. It was a journey movie, almost a fairytale. With zombies.

I saw John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. That was all right. Disturbing, freaky, okay plot. A writer's fiction coming to life in an attempt to what? I wasn't quite sure of that. To be God? To destroy. Eh. This movie makes the mistake Infection didn't. It shows the ultimate horror allowing you to laugh a the '90s special effects. Oh well.

Mad Detective, a Chinese movie. A detective goes to a retired colleague for help on a case. This colleague seems to have the ability to see people's inner selves. This is somewhat marred by the fact that he is insane. The inner selves concept was fascinating (and confusing) to watch play out although in the end it didn't really go anywhere. The ending was a bit odd but the ride as a whole was satisfying.

And now I'm playing Resident Evil 4 on my wii. The dialogue says the village Leon goes to is "somewhere in Europe" but it's totally Spain. Right? The villagers speak Spanish. To my great amusement the infected villagers seemed to be just repeatedly saying "cabron" and "mierda" in the background. The woman droning "mierda" does appear to be cleaning out a cow shed so maybe she's just commenting on her work. Also, the village is apparently named "pueblo." The controls are a little iffy. Turning is not easy and you can't walk around with your knife out. I am enjoying shooting the crap out of anything that moves and exploring the village. We'll see where this goes.

In a shocking turn of events somebody wants to employ me

So I've been offered the librarian job. The terms will be sent to me next week for my approval and I'm totally terrified. I'm a beta person at heart and while perfectly capable of assuming an alpha role I'd rather not do it my first professional job. However, the project is exciting and much closer to home. I need to come up with a budget and talk to other librarians, find someone to mentor me.

I'm reading Body Count by P.D. Martin, an entirely forgettable detective story featuring an Australian woman working for the FBI in Washington, DC. She has psychic visions and she and her friend Sam and her new FBI boyfriend Josh are trying to find the DC Slasher. The writing is competent, the author did her research on criminal profiling and forensics, the plot generally moves forward, and the characters are at least somewhat engaging. She lays everything to do with the subject of profiling out as it comes up in informative paragraphs without being distracting. There is nothing very challenging or inventive (she does all right on the killer though). This is light reading at its best (as far as rape, torture, and killing go anyway). Also, I totally know who the killer is. The clues are not particularly subtle, unless they're a misdirect. If I'm wrong I'll be pleasantly surprised. If I'm right I'll be smug.

I'm also reading I, Claudius by Robert Graves. I love history and he has created an engaging character to bring this story of Augustus, Livia and their pawns, family, pawns to life. Livia is a manipulative, cunning, mean-spirited, ambitious woman and Augustus is her perfect puppet. I've tried to create a crib sheet to keep track of the Claudian and Julian families but the lines are all over the place. Graves does a pretty good job of keeping everyone and their story lines separate though. Each chapter sets out sets out an intrigue or theme based around Claudius and his kin so that it occasionally jumps backward and forward in time a little so that other family members stories can catch up. I'm going to take my time with this one.

I watched Naked Lunch. Ohhh well. What to say. It is obviously not the book. That's not really possible; the characters would blend one into the other and half the screen time would be nothing but guys have sex. I mean, a lot of people would watch it of course but then it wouldn't have Ian Holm in it and I think we can mainly agree that that would be a shame.

It combines the Interzone country (a fictional place nowhere they've set in Northern Africa filled with drug cabals, agents, and bugs posing as typewriters (that last part wasn't in the book)) with parts of Burroughs' own life, such as the accidental shooting of his wife and the writing of Naked Lunch. His hallucinations seem to mesh well with reality anyway, allowing him to wander through his time in Interzone acting as an agent writing reports and his book. He also gives monologues consisting of passages from the novel. He gains a pretty boy lover named KiKi and there are even more bugs and parrots and the 'black meat'. Then it possibly starts all over again but I'm not sure.

Honestly I think this movie is for people who've read the book and know something about the author. Though if it makes even less sense maybe it's more intriguing? It was good. I'm rambling and tired.

Remember, if you don't laugh at yourself, somebody else will do it for you

I just finished The Winter Queen. Holy fucking shit on a biscuit hell. So the ending was unexpected. That hard edge I said was running under the surface broke through at the end to rise off the page in an attempt to skewer the reader. It doesn't quite manage it because the romance is woefully underdeveloped but while that lessens the impact it doesn't entirely do away with it. It does make me want to get the next book out of the library to see what happens so well done, Akunin! Your ploy plot worked! It was a fun read, truly.

I finished watching a Korean vampire movie called Thirst. Woo the cinematography was quite stunning and the actors were impressive. A priest is infected with a vampire like virus when he volunteers as a test subject for a new vaccine. He tries to remain good in spite of his body's need for blood but finds it harder and harder as he also falls for and gets involved with an old friend's wife. Like Let the Right One in this movie gets back to vampire basics, showing them as parasites with an uncontrollable need. It could be disgusting at times and it really could have been edited down but there were a number of very intense and captivating scenes. I've got to check out some of this directors other stuff.

I'm also watching Antibodies, a German thriller. It's good although not great. The directing and acting are very nice but the story kind of meanders. Oh it has a specific purpose; the village cop wants to find out if the serial killer recently captured is the murderer of a local girl, but it sort of wanders away at points. It's also about this farmer/cop's own descent into darkness. The only problem I have is I don't understand where his problem is stemming from. Has he always had a dark side that just never came to his attention because there were no opportunities? Is the "big city" a corrupting influence? Is his own naivety working against him, leaving him unprepared to face and deal with real evil? I can understand that his eyes have been opened to new things and that the case has had an adverse effect on him. Plus the real killer is totally his son. I haven't even finished the movie yet and I can already tell you that. It's been obvious since the halfway point if not earlier. Well. I have like the way Michael (the cop) has dealt so far with the serial killer. He doesn't give much ground and only grudgingly. So it's a pretty decent movie.

Okay I just finished watching it. Okay, that was a nice twist. And hooray for the ending. The acting at the end was moving. My impressions would probably less disjointed if I actually watched movies through in one sitting but I get so antsy.

And I just finished watching Christian Bale in The Machinist. It was good at first and then it got really slow, and then it picked up and then it just became sort of disappointing. This guy hasn't slept in a year. Bale lost weight for the role and good God he looks unhealthy. He looks like a walking skeleton. And nobody attributes his abnormal behavior to this. Nor do I really understand the whole thing with the fish. Okay, maybe I do but it was very anticlimactic. The whole thing was. We start out watching him rolling a body into the water and it never delivers on that promise. Anyway, I suppose my response is, eh.

There is no title, I ate it

Boring day but that's alright. Good food today; I treated myself to a burger with jalapeños and hot sauce and there were home-made whoopie pies to celebrate a co-workers birthday.

Bandoline: "A gummy preparation for fixing hair." Can also be used as a verb. From OED.

I've never heard this used. I wonder if it's obsolete. Dictionary.com says it's "a mucilaginous preparation made from quince seeds and used for smoothing, glossing ,and waving the hair."

Other web hits seem to imply it's some sort of musical instrument but I wonder if people aren't just confusing it with something else.

Not much to say today. I finished When the Bough Breaks. I always forget how irritating Kellerman's books are. There's something aggressively bland about his main character. Alex is a psychologist and he's capable of drawing people out with his mad shrink skills but he kind of comes off as rather patronizing. I can't imagine his techniques working on real people unless they wanted to talk to begin with. I know the author is a psychologist but I can't help but feel he makes it a little easier for his character to allow him to show off and advance the plot. And then the rather bland character goes all Jack Bauer on the bad guy but fails when it comes to the actual rescue. In the end the police save the day, which is fine but for all his posturing it would have been nice if Alex had managed it alone. Also, dude, if you're in a car chase, dodging a guy on a motorcycle with a gun, put the brakes on sooner. He'll go right over your trunk and viola, problem solved. Well, the books aren't bad when gotten out of the library.

I watched the movie Pulse. A Japanese horror movie from the days of dial-up internet where a website shows...ghosts? There are red taped doors that lead to the Forbidden Room and there's not enough space for people and spirits and people merge with walls, leaving creepy shadows. Apocalypse! And it all ends on a boat. I think I missed something crucial to understanding the whole thing. Ah well.

I'm reading Le Clezio's Onitsha. Takes place in Africa in 1948. A boy named Fintan travels to Niger with his mother to meet up with her husband. I haven't quite figured out if he's Fintan's biological father or not. They've just arrived which is good because I was getting tired of them being on the boat. It's okay so far but the descriptions aren't very evocative. Everything seems a little flat. I don't know if it's the translation or what but maybe things will be more interesting when they get to their destination.

By the by, that's my sister up there reading to my cousin's daughter.

I should be looking for a new job

Contumacy:

A. Perverse and obstinate resistance of or disobedience to authority; rebellious stubbornness.

B. An act or instance of wilful disobedience.

I finished Missing yesterday. Not the best book ever but still a good read. It's not really a mystery. Yes, there's a killer and it's a mystery who it is but that's not what the story is about. It's really about Sibylla and her journey out of obscurity and hopelessness. It's about the connection she's made with another human being for the first time in her life. It's the story of her fight for legitimacy. The chapters alternate between the present and the past with a few pages of religious rambling from the actual murderer thrown in for good measure. There is very little investigating. Leads are found right away and they always pan out. It's easy to pick out the important clues but the author doesn't make you wait too long for the character to figure them out. There's a dramatic showdown between Sibylla and the murderer. The whole thing was a bit depressing until the end but I found it worth it. I seem to be reading a lot of books like that lately. I need something more cheerful.

One thing it helps to know is that Sibylla is apparently the name of a fast food chain in Sweden. I had to look this up on Wikipedia because I couldn't understand why she hated her name so much.

I seem to be reading and now watching a lot of things with children being abused both physically and emotionally. How am I finding these things? I need a break. I watched the new The Karate Kid. Jaden Smith does a great job as the protagonist. Jackie Chan reminded me that he's a great dramatic actor. The fight scenes were very entertaining and the story was, well, the same as the original. Boy (Dre) moves to a new place where he meets a girl. Kung Fu kid takes a dislike to Dre and beats him up. Dre meets Mr. Han the maintenance man who teaches him Kung Fu. Dre wins the tournament (hope I didn't spoil the ending). Pretty predictable. However, the way they get there is still well worth watching. The relationship between Dre and Mr. Han is rewarding. There are several fairly emotional scenes and you really feel their weight. The bully is a terrifying little snot. Seriously, he looks like even if he couldn't hit you anymore he'd still attempt to gnaw on your leg. At the end it seems like Dre has learned more than just the physical aspects of the sport.

On the other hand I feel they could have pared it down by about twenty minutes especially from the beginning. It's hard enough watching a nice high school kid get the crap beat out of him but it's even more painful when the boy is only twelve. Still, I recommend it.

I like you but I don't want to hear about your plumbing problems

It really felt like the beginning of spring today and now they say it'll snow Tuesday. I'd say Nature needs to stop jerking us around but I don't want to make Her angry.

Today could have been frustrating, they keep giving me the same post at work, but I managed to cheer myself up by talking to the young woman who works in the cafe. She's very talkative and friendly.

I finished reading an Eyewitness travel guide on Bali & Lombok. I enjoy that series, along with the Insight guides and the Culture Shock series. They give information on people and customs that allow you to get an idea of the inhabitants and not just the architecture. Also, there are lots of pictures.

I also finished reading Journey to the Centre of the Earth. While, when you think about it, not a lot of stuff happens on the trek, Verne still makes it interesting and exciting. The narrative manages to convey that claustrophobic feeling of being practically entombed within in the depths, with miles and miles of heavy rock sitting heavily over your body. The despair Axel feels when lost carries over from the prose, giving you a taste of the desolation of being utterly alone in the dark so far from everything you are familiar with. You feel the fury of the storm and the wonders of things you've only read about in books coming to life before you. All of the scenes leave the reader realizing how small and fragile the characters are, how helpless against the implacable planet (practically a character itself) and that makes their determination to survive and continue that much more awesome. It's a great adventure.

I tried to watch a supernatural horror movie called deadline the other day. I got about an hour in and had to stop. Stuff was finally happening but it was so boring. There were too many coincidences. The main character lost a baby when her insanely jealous boyfriend tried to drown her in a tub and then she goes to a house for quiet to write her book and it just happens that the same situation had played out there? And who would leave a mentally fragile woman alone in a strange house the day her murderous boyfriend gets out of jail? When will scriptwriters learn that just showing a person talking a few pills from a prescription bottle doesn't mean they don't have to show those psychiatric disorders as well? Taking a couple of pills doesn't automatically equal batshit. Why doesn't my spell-checker recognize the word batshit? It's a perfectly good synonym for crazy-as-fuck. Anyway. It was more a supernatural domestic drama than it was a horror flick. Maybe it got better in the last half hour but honestly I was bored. I couldn't even be bothered to read a book while finishing it. That's pretty bad. You want better horror films? Try Session 9, Below, Paranormal Activity (the night scenes anyway), Dead End, Death Row (stupid but fun), Legend of Hell House, The Ring, The Orphanage, Ju-on 2, or the Evil Dead series. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is out on Netflix; that's next to watch. That was such a good series.

In which I exorcise a dumb movie

Alright, so anything that bills “The tooth fairy” as the monster in a horror movie I would normally avoid because that’s just stupid but this one was given the tag “understated” and I thought cool, I’ll play a game or read while I watch. The first 30 minutes weren’t bad. This town of Darkness Falls (maybe it’s better than being from a place called Intercourse?) 100 something years ago had this old lady who gave gold coins to the town kids when they lost their last baby tooth. Then there was a fire and her face burned off and she couldn’t stand light anymore. So she became a recluse. These two kids disappear and the townspeople blamed her and they hanged her, apparently without a trial or you know, looking for the missing children. She cursed the town, saying she’d return every time a child lost their last baby tooth to kill them. So she kaks it and like, immediately the kids are found. Most embarrassing thing to happen in that town since they’d pilloried the milkman before discovering you couldn’t get milk from a bull. Live and learn, I suppose.

Modern times. This boy loses his last baby tooth. He looks like he’s in middle school already but I’ll run with it. At home he’s kinda nervous because of the stories told about what happens to kids on this day. If every person who loses all their baby teeth gets killed, wouldn’t there be no town anymore? Anyway, this girl comes in through his window and there’s an awkward/sweet scene where he asks her to the school dance and she kisses him. She sees the tooth, tells him to man up and puts it under his pillow and leaves. He goes to sleep. There’s a noise and here’s our introduction to the supernatural element of the story. He grabs a flashlight and shines it on a phantom of the opera mask attached to a collection of rags. It’s actually not a bad effect. The light drives her away and he runs for it. His mother gets up only to be dragged into her darkened bedroom to be brutally murdered because apparently the tooth fairy goes after anyone who sees her. Why? I don’t know, she’s just random that way as we see later on. The boy (maybe his name was Kyle? I’m gonna go with Kyle) hides in the bathroom with the lights on. Scary sounds, the ghost hovers outside the door but can’t go in.

Next day, the whole town watches as the police take Kyle in for murdering his mother. Which doesn’t make nearly enough sense. I would have assumed that she had surprised a burglar not that her pre-pubescent boy had gone crazy and slashed her to death with an unknown weapon that is no longer to be found. This is the first indication that maybe this movie might rather suck. The police mutter that everyone knew Kyle had “problems” though they never elaborate. The girl (Kate) and a couple other kids, look on in apathy.

Twelve years later and someone how everyone is about 30. Kate has turned into Emma Caulfield and she’s taken her 9 (!?) year-old brother Michael to the hospital because he’s terrified of the dark and can’t sleep longer than ten minutes at a time. The doctors tell her it’s because he’s a little boy and they’re like that. Okay.

Kyle is living a huge industrial looking apartment and I am very jealous. What sort of job does he have? He’s been drawing the tooth fairy over and over again and taping it to his wall and he never leaves home without a duffle bag full of flashlights. If he ever leaves the light, the tooth fairy will get him because she never abandons her prey. He also takes a ton of pills. Kate calls him because she wants to know how he got over his fear of the dark. He hasn’t but since she actually wasted her time tracking him down after not bothering for twelve years he may as well come see her brother anyway.

He arrives at the hospital and she sort of implies that the same thing that happened to Kyle has happened to Michael (you know, losing their last baby tooth, which you’d think she would’ve gone through at some point) and she asks him to help. He talks to Michael who has also been drawing pictures of the tooth fairy. These things only ever seem to happen to people with artistic skills. Michael asks if things get better when you grow up and Kyle lies his ass off.

Kyle is all about rekindling the flame that was budding when he and Kate were in elementary school but that hope is dashed when Larry shows up. We know he’s one of the kids from the police scene twelve years ago because both actors wear glasses. He’s a lawyer and he’s possibly in some relationship with Kate. Anyway they hug and Kyle looks bummed so I guess? Kate stays at the hospital and Larry insists he and Kyle go out to dinner to catch up.

Here I was expecting, like, a restaurant or a diner, or even an IHOP but instead we get what appears to be a biker bar. Dark wood, beer signs and a pool table. Larry offers to get them both a beer but Kyle doesn’t drink because of the truckload of pills he downs every few hours. So Larry, in the movie’s attempt at humor, gets him a light beer. He also informs the redneck denizens at the bar of who’s finally come back to town and one plaid clad fellow takes serious offense. He immediately starts harassing Kyle, trying to pick a fight. Because he knew Kyle’s mother…because they… it affected him…he…? No, I don’t know. Kyle leaves and Larry can’t be bothered because those two beers aren’t going to drink themselves.

Out in the woods (!?) Kyle gets attacked by Mr. Plaid who has either built up twelve years of seething hatred over the death of someone else’s mother or just really, really wants to wrestle. Kyle loses his flashlight and they end up in the dark. The tooth fairy attacks…the redneck. So he gets slaughtered. Larry has gotten off his lazy backside and…called the police? Who actually come out in full force because there’s nothing better to do on a Thursday night but break up a possible scuffle. They’re running through the woods and Larry has dead redneck drop on him. So Kyle gets arrested because it’s exactly the way his mother died twelve years ago.

Okay, the first half hour of the movie wasn’t bad but this has progressively been getting stupider.

Kyle is in the local jail. Back at the hospital, Michael gets attacked by the tooth fairy again and Kate finds him cowering in the showing with his arms cut up. The doctor tells Kate that lack of sleep has caused her brother to experience a minor psychotic break and that if something isn’t done he will only get worse. Fortunately they have an effective cure. Sensory deprivation. In order to force him to confront his fears and recognize them as harmless. I shit you not. They want to put a nine-year-old boy who is afraid of the dark in a sensory deprivation tank. It’s not like that will push him further over the edge or cause a major psychotic break or allow a monster to rip his face off. No, it will show him that he’s being foolish. I just...Right. Kate agrees.

Larry bails Kyle out of jail after having cleaned himself of dead guy and takes him to a gun store where Kyle buys every flashlight in the place and possibly steals a gun. They start driving off and Kyle, in a fit of bad writing, becomes convinced that someone is going to force Michael into the dark and wants to head back to the hospital. Larry is having none of it so Kyle pulls the gun on him. Larry hits the brakes hard and Kyle goes through the windshield because being a tortured main character who never catches a break means not wearing your seat belt. He’s fine, of course. Larry, however, gets grabbed by the tooth fairy, who, like a cat with a mouse, plays with him for a bit before finally offing him. Kyle takes the chance to get in the car and drive off.

Back at the hospital Michael is just about to go into sensory deprivation, which looks an awful lot like an MRI machine, when Kyle shows up and yells at Kate to stop them. She does, deciding to believe the crazy person she hasn’t seen since he was a kid and was accused of killing his mother over her brother’s doctors. Actually in this case I think I would too. Suddenly the police, who must have some sort of radar to inform them anytime someone in their jurisdiction drops dead, shows up to arrest Kyle for murdering Larry. He goes back to jail.

The police officers refuse to believe that an escaped denizen from hell is after Kyle (imagine that). A storm rolls in, lightening flashing, thunder booming and the lights in the whole town go out. The lighthouse beam dies. (Oh yeah, there’s a lighthouse.) The police station gets attacked. Or I should say, everyone in the police station, except Kyle the intended prey, gets attacked. Finally it’s only Kyle and one cop left and the cop finally believes that maybe Kyle was right about the evil spirit that everyone in the town knew about from tales and has been killing kids for over a century.

Hospital. Kate and Michael run around, Kyle shows up and they and two nurses and a doctor regroup in a corridor. The doctor says the emergency generator will give them light for another couple of minutes. I’m sorry but I call bullshit. It’s an emergency generator for a hospital for crying out loud. They’re made so people on respirators and such don’t die during power outages. Why does this one only last a few minutes? And where are all the other people? Did the tooth fairy kill everyone in the building before coming after the two she really wants? Anyway, much running around while the characters try to be dramatic about staying in small patches of light and making really stupid decisions. Unsurprisingly, the three hospital workers get picked off. That’s really all they were there for, to provide the monster with fodder other than the main characters. The cop manages to break through the brick wall of the hospital with his SUV and Kate, Michael, and Kyle pile in.

Okay, this next part is deeply stupid. They decide to make for the lighthouse so they can fill it with fuel and turn it on. The tooth fairy attacks and they badly fight her off with heavy-duty flashlights that manage to break easier than most eggs. There is much screaming while I think to myself, “Why don’t you just turn the interior lights on? And then you could drive until you find a town that still has power and sit in the parking lot of one of those strip malls where the lights are always on.” For that matter, why aren’t the flashes of lightening driving her away? Why does she kill some people immediately and others she swings around like some sort of demented carnival ride? Why didn’t Kyle, years ago, lure her into a room with him and then turn on the lights? Never mind.

They make it to the lighthouse where everyone continues to demonstrate their complete inability to hold onto important life-saving objects for longer than ten seconds. They fill the generator and start up the light. Of course it goes out because there is a leak in the fuel line. The cop tries to fix it and dies. Kyle tries to fix it and manages to set the floor on fire. Yay, light! But no, not enough? Jeezit. He needs to flip a switch which should not have been so hard to reach. This lighthouse was built to fend off mildly retarded terrorists or something. Michael, being small, is able to get at the switch after much bother. The resulting flood of light annoys the tooth fairy but she still manages to grab Kyle. She hauls him up into the air where they struggle and Kyle pulls off her mask exposing her sensitive burned face with an, “I can see you, Bitch!” I am regretting this being one of those movies where the main characters survive. The tooth fairy dies. Again. The three sit in the light, leaning against each other, happy to have survived the supernatural and their own monumental ineptness.

Last scene. A boy who has just lost a tooth puts it under his pillow. The movie tries to fake us out but it’s only his mom who exchanges the tooth with a quarter while kissing him good night. The End.