Dentist 2

(1998) **1/2




In the sequel that no one asked for, snow globe enthusiast* Corben Bernsen reprises his role as Dr. Caine, the notorious psycho dentist from the first one. After a daring escape from a mental institution, Dr. Caine forges a new identity for himself in the small Midwestern town of Paradise. Determined to overcome his demons, the good doctor starts a new practice, falls in love and briefly leads a life of peace. After being exposed to some poor Midwestern hygiene though, his mad dentist instincts resurface. The threat posed by his girlfriend's ex soon sends him over the edge and a new killing spree ensues.

To his credit, he does manage to make it through his first routine checkup without murdering the patient, offering a glimmer of hope that things could work out. But the second guy is not so lucky... Like the first installment, the closeups of Dr. Caine poking, clamping and drilling around in people's mouths were more than enough to satisfy my twisted horror needs and if Brian Yuzna's goal was to make me never want to set foot in a dentist office again; he did a damn fine job. One scene that still bothers me introduced a game called "Truth or Tooth", which he played with an unsuspecting bank teller.

As a '98 B-movie, Dentist 2 is somewhat passable, even watchable. But it eventually boils down to: does this Bernsen guy make a good psycho? And the answer is - no, not really. He tries too hard and he giggles too much. And the giggling is only a symptom of a much grander problem that I am only just grasping the magnitude of.

I can't in good conscience recommend these Dentist flicks. But I'm pretty sure I'd watch a third one.

*I'mNotMarc's Corben Bernsen research led to the discovery that the actor is an avid snow globe collector. I thought there might be something interesting about that hobby but our extensive research led to nothing. Octopunk felt that snow globe collecting is for unimaginative people who want to collect something but just don't know what. It's a hard point to argue. The most expensive snow globe on Ebay is this Luis Vuitton "rarity" going currently for $480:
For more information on how to collect snow globes visit: http://www.ehow.com/how_17247_collect-snow-globes.html

In Dentist 2, a door-to-door snow globe salesman character is introduced in the beginning. He seems relevant for a while but then he just disappears a third of the way into the movie. What the hell is that about? Lame life imitating lame art? Is that even really a job? Would anyone buy a snow globe from a door-to-door salesman?