Night Teeth is aimed at a younger audience, and follows the strictures of mainstream vampire formula. It fills every expectation of the genre in exactly the timing that general audiences respond to. This means evil characters have to die. It doesn’t matter if you like them; monsters must be dispatched by the end of the movie. They may come back a few times, but unless there’s a franchise planned, evildoers go down. Especially in the post-superhero landscape where truth, justice, and “a Better Tomorrow” allows anyone to mount a crusade in a mask, antlers, or a cape.
But they are not going to rock that cape like Megan Fox does, and some lucky filmmaker should drape her as a super-antihero, and let her get away with all the vile deeds creatures like vampires are punished for indulging. Vampires do not need to be killed at the end of every movie, and they certainly are not looking for redemption. Save that for Blaire and Benny (Jorge Lendeborg, Jr.), who follow the immortal romantic vampire trail headlong into the sunset.
Fox and Sweeney’s Grace and Eva are Victor’s bosses. When Victor breaks the truce by killing a human in a safe zone, they get to decide whether he dies or lives in banishment. Victor’s proposal is a sound one. Take away the protection, and the entire city is an open neck.
Sipping on a blood martini, with crimson lips, long, black nails, and a bejeweled and hooded cape, Fox’s Grace admits she is equally frustrated. “Do you think that when my pool boy leaves a leaf in the pool, that I don’t want to string him upside down and suck him dry?” she admits, illuminated by a fireplace burning deep red. I’d like to see a movie which would let her, and allow her to live on to do it again.
The vampire protectors of the human world are only protecting humans out of convenience. Anti-vampire vigilantes like Benny’s brother Jay (Raul Castillo) won’t come knocking, and the local cops ensure the blood exchanges go smoothly, and consensually. As the overseers, Grace and Eva are deliciously, offhandedly cruel. Every sentence carries a bite. They are insolent, jaded immortals who like the status quo because they control it.
I admit, I always root for the villain, monster, mobster, or poisonous lobster in genre films. I have since I was a kid. They speak to me. But in this film, the most antagonistic vampires are the best characters. Alexander Ludwig’s Rocko is a breath of stale fetid air. Victor offers a vampire hunter a bite of his own niece. Megan Fox and Sydney Sweeney play greedy, narcissistic, bored and cynical majesties, entitled by blood. They are vampire queens and should be given their reign. Fox certainly earned her place as horror royalty.
