Tooth and Nail

• Genre: PostApoc
• Release Year: 2007
• Director: Mark Young
• Writer: Mark Young
• Running Time: 94min
• Rating: R (Violence, Vikings)
• Reviewed by: UncleDrax, CyberpunkFuture, ZombieBait on Sun 25 Nov 07

Official Blurb:
A group of young people, called Foragers, fight to survive against a band of vicious cannibals, known as Rovers, in a post-apocalyptic world which has been depleted of fossil fuels.

Review:
Civilization has ceased to be, but it wasn't a nuclear war or plagues, it was Oil. Yeap.. Oil ran out. As you can imagine, that would cause a huge problem, both economically and survival-wise for modern civilization. Most people from the northern part of the US fled down into the southern states, taking snow-birds to a whole new level.

The film takes place primarily in a hospital in Philadelphia where a band of survivors are holding out, surviving on a stock of (apparently vegetarian-only) Red-Cross rations they found. The survivors all are named after automobiles, with names like 'Neon', 'Ford', 'Viper' ,'Dakota', and so forth, except for the group's leader, 'Darwin'. Darwin is quickly cast as the ivory-tower intellectual that once things go wrong, he can't handle anything. Fortunately you don't have to deal with it long.

The story begins with a group of these survivors scouting out a section of town, but come across a dead man and a woman that is banged up. Being good Samaritans, the bring the banged up woman back to their hospital, even though none of them are doctors, but she recovers fine.

Soon after, the leader of the group disappears amid a blood-covered floor, and the fragile level of rationality they did have goes out the window. The new-girl Neon, attempts to explain what is happening.. it was likely done by the 'Rovers', a band of heavy-metal viking "cannibals.. what?! Cannibals! What? THEY EAT PEOPLE! "

Like all good nightmares, they only attack at night, but will only take one person to eat at a time, then come back another day for another person and so forth. Which makes sense because you don't have to feed your food that way.... but any rational food source would run away.. did I the survivors lost their rationality? Good.

What I liked:
- Good premise for a film, which is essentially an economic collapse of apocalyptic proportions. No Oil means no moving of goods and services, which means no electricity.
- It's a roller coaster film.. it goes from good, to bad, to so bad it's good. This is one of the main things that make a B-class movie to me. I had several of those 'Why did you do THAT' moments that only come from this sort of movie.
- There's some pretty well-known actors playing peripheral characters (aka Rovers).
- A few good 'that was clever' moments by the characters. It's nice when at least one character is actually pretty damn smart.


What I didn't like:
- Clichés .... many of them.. the Herbivore vs the Predator, the sensible tough guy that no one will listen too, the ivory-tower leader that doesn't understand the world, and so on.
- As usual and demanded in the plot, the characters are, in general, unnecessary lacking common sense, and this includes the reversion to high-school-cheerleader style politics when Darwin (the leader) disappears.
- a few parts of poor or trying dialog, and there are at least a couple times where the dialog takes the time to explain WHY something is happening, even though the audience knew it well before hand.
- Heavy-Metal Vikings are the bad guys? well.. they aren't listening to heavy metal (for the only reason of no power or batteries I would wager), and they aren't really vikings, but the first one you get a really good look at is wearing fur-covered boots, bikeresque appearance, and carrying a double-bladed ax... You tell me that isn't a Heavy-Metal-Viking.
- Where did Victoria go? I'm guessing we'll find out in a deleted scene on the DVD...
- The rovers are nothing more then the simple bad-guy group. The little bit they explain about the group as a whole left some of us wanting to know more about them. Why did they let the person that is leading them lead them? They have pretty much no dialog aside from a few one-liners. I can see Mr Young trying to make them more like a force of nature lead by their leader, rather then a group of rational people that just came to a strange choice.

Rating:

• Genre Feel: 4
• Acting: 3
• Effects: 3
  
• Production Quality:: 3

Final Scoring:

Personal Recommendation: It's a member of the new-generation B movies. If you like that, see it... if you don't.. then don't.

Availablity:
  In limited theatres now, I would expect a DVD drop around Spring/Summer 08.
  In Theaters  

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