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Blu-Ray : Recommended
Ranking:
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Release Date: January 24th, 2023 Movie Release Year: 1998

The Dentist Collection - Vestron Video Collector's Series

Overview -

Don’t open wide - it isn’t safe! Brian Yuzna’s oral horror classics The Dentist and The Dentist 2 starring Corbin Bernsen come home to Blu-ray as the 29th entry in Lionsgate’s Vestron Video Collector’s series. The A/V department may leave a little something to be desired, but the excellent slate of bonus features fills the gaps and cavities. Recommended

Where there's a drill, there's a way. Corbin Bernsen stars as homicidal dentist Dr. Alan Feinstone in these two horror favorites, available for the first time on Blu-ray.

In The Dentist, Beverly Hills dentist Dr. Feinstone seems to have the perfect, ordered life — until the discovery of his wife's affair with the pool boy sends him off the deep end, unlocking the killer inside.

The Dentist 2 finds the evil doctor in a maximum-security mental hospital…but not for long, as he escapes to a small town and turns his attention to a new love interest and new victims.

 

OVERALL:
Recommended
Rating Breakdown
STORY
VIDEO
AUDIO
SPECIAL FEATURES
Tech Specs & Release Details
Technical Specs:
2 x Blu-ray Discs + Digital
Video Resolution/Codec:
1080p AVC/MPEG-4
Length:
189
Aspect Ratio(s):
1.78:1, 1.85:1
Audio Formats:
English: DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles/Captions:
English, English SDH, Spanish
Release Date:
January 24th, 2023

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

Ranking:

Meet Dr. Alan Feinstone DDS (Corbin Bernsen). He’s a man who has it all, a thriving practice, a massive home, and a beautiful wife Brooke (Linda Hoffman). But he’s also a little nuts. OCD to the max, when Alan discovers his wife is schtupping the pool boy, he takes his rage to the office where he only sees one cavity-infested rotting mouth after the next. And they need to be cleaned… they must be cleaned with blood! 3.5/5

After his deadly dental rampage, Alan Feinstone was institutionalized. During his routine checkup from the neck up, Alan escapes fleeing to smalltown Missouri where he’d set up an alternate life for himself with all the money he was skimming from the IRS. Intent to avoid his worst habits, he suddenly finds himself drilling teeth and falling for local beauty Jamie Devers (Jillian McWhirter). But as a private investigator narrows in on Alan’s whereabouts, the good doctor’s worst tendencies come back to bite the good folks in town. 3/5 

If you’re someone with built-in issues about going to the dentist, The Dentist and The Dentist 2 aren’t going to do you any favors. Brian Yuzna has always had a flair for bloody body horror mixed with sadistically hilarious dark comedy. His two trips to the horrors of oral hygiene are great examples of the gooey auteur’s flair for the material. Capped with a terrific performance from a delightfully unhinged Corbin Bernsen, these video store mainstays are a lot of fun for fans of this sort of show. Between the films, there’s a parade of fan-favorite and up-and-coming faces including Ken Foree, the late Earl Boen, Mark Ruffalo, Molly Hagan, Clint Howard, Wendy Robie, 

Made at the peak of Trimark’s run for well-produced direct-to-video horror features, The Dentist knows its audience and relishes in the mayhem. With some incredibly inventive visual effects and uncomfortably close-up shots of dental trauma, the movie makes you squirm and laugh as much as you’ll recoil in horror. Bersen is in great form leaning into the demented comedy swishing and spitting diabolical puns throughout each film. 

But one good turn deserves another and The Dentist 2 is a nice golden crown of a sequel. Not as good as the original, but it's a good filling without drilling the premise into the root. It may stretch some suspension of disbelief that a famous crazy dentist wouldn’t be easily recognizable everywhere he went, and it may rest on some simple contrivances to move forward, but it’s a fun show. A lot of the horror may be the greatest hits of the first film, but it’s still uncomfortably horrific and often damn funny. 

I hadn’t watched these films for the better side of 20 years and it was a gas to watch them again. It made me long for the good old days when direct-to-video horror didn’t mean it was crap. From the original Leprechaun films to Pinocchio's Revenge to that gnarly 1995 Rumplestiltskin, there were some great flicks filling up your local video store’s horror shelves. The good years. Now with legacy sequels being all the rage, maybe it’s time we make an overdue appointment for The Dentist 3

 



Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
The Dentist Collection
comes to Blu-ray with a two-disc + Digital release from Lionsgate as the 29th entry in the ever-growing Vestron Video Collector’s Series. Each film picks up a Region A BD-25 disc. The discs are housed in a two-disc eco-friendly case with slipcover artwork. The discs load to animated main menus for each film with standard navigation options.

Video Review

Ranking:

Considering their status as former video store shelf fodder, it shouldn’t really be a surprise that The Dentist and The Dentist 2 aren’t exactly stellar upgrades. Certainly better than their respective DVD or VHS counterparts, but these films would absolutely benefit from fresh scans and a little restoration TLC. Uniformly, fine details are there but not exactly crystal clear. Film grain is appreciable but it's on the messy side of things. Speckling and scratches are near-constant companions for both films. Colors a relatively healthy with decent primaries but contrast also leaves something to be desired. These films are far from the worst things out there for this sort of product. There are moments where the transfers look genuinely quite good - namely the uncomfortable close-ups of oral horror - but when a title like Ticks can pick up a 4K release, one can assume the same could be possible for these two films. The transfers get the job done, they look good, but there’s obvious room for improvement.

Audio Review

Ranking:

Things work a little better for the DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio tracks for each film. Dialog is clean and clear without issue. Sound effects are appropriately heightened - especially the grating sound of dental drills and that grinding screech whenever he hits a tooth. The Alan Howarth scores for each film are fun complete with stingers pulled from his Halloween 4 days. Imaging is serviceable allowing for enough spacing for some of the more dynamic and nasty sequences to come to life and fill the soundscape. Levels are spot on and there aren’t any age-related issues to speak of.

Special Features

Ranking:

The nice thing with this set is each film is packed with some great bonus features. You get commentary tracks for each film, some isolated score sections to highlight Alan Howarth’s efforts, interviews with various cast and crewmembers and other great pieces worth diving into. Considering all things, it’s nice to see these movies get this kind of attention.

The Dentist

  • Audio Commentary featuring Brian Yuzna, and Anthoney C. Ferrante
  • Isolated Score Sections & Audio Interview with Alan Howarth and Levie Isaacks
  • The Doctor is Insane - Interview with Corbin Bernsen (HD 16:12)
  • Medical Malpractice - Interview with Dennis Paoli (HD 13:54)
  • Mouths of Madness - Interview with Anthony C. Ferrante and J.M. Logan (HD 17:28)
  • Trailer
  • Still Gallery

The Dentist 2

  • Audio Commentary featuring Brian Yuzna, and Anthoney C. Ferrante
  • Isolated Score Sections & Audio Interview with Alan Howarth and Christopher Roth
  • Jamies New Neighbor - Interview with Jillian McWhirter (HD 14:40)
  • A Tale of Two Dentists - Interview with Pierre David (HD 10:15)
  • Trailer
  • Still Gallery

No one is going to accuse The Dentist and The Dentist 2 of being high art or the best the horror genre has to offer, but in terms of strict entertainment value, these are a lot of fun. Uncomfortable as they are, they’re damned entertaining. Bernsen got to break his mold a little and play crazy while Brian Yuzna got to explore a new realm of body horror one tooth at a time. Now on Blu-ray, Lionsgate gives fans The Dentist Collection offering up decent transfers and solid audio for each film with plenty of bonus features to sink your teeth into. Recommended