Razortooth DVD Review | Digital Retribution

Razortooth (2006)

By: Julian on October 15, 2008

Comments (1)

Anchor Bay (Australia), Region 4, PAL.. 1:78:1 (16:9 enhanced). English DD 2.0. 91 minutes

The Movie

Cover Art

Credits

Director: Patricia Harrington
Starring: Kathleen LaGue, Doug Swander, Matt Holly, Brandon Breault, Mark Butler
Screenplay: Matt Holly, Jack Monroe
Country: USA

External Links

As a responsible sort of a reviewer, I think it's best I say this from the beginning: by conventional standards, this is a walking Razzie-magnet. The acting is dreadful, the direction amateurish (although Harrington was an electrician on 1990's Sorority House Massacre II… what a waste of talent) and the eel looks like a 5-frames-per-second Blender job. But I enjoyed it a lot. Equip yourself with lotsa pizza for this one, kiddies, 'cause it's a blast.

Razortooth is set in a bayou-side town somewhere in Florida. It's a pretty eventful little hamlet – two escapees from a local prison are using it as their hideout, a group of college students are doing their practical there and we're thrown a bit of soap opera drama as local sherrif Ruth (Kathleen LaGue) and animal control officer Delmar Coates put aside their past issues (namely ex-marital ones) to find a local in-bred's dog. When Ruth and Delmar discover said dog skinned, they realise something's up and approach a Pom researcher who's carrying out a few experiments in the area. As things turned out, one of his experiments – the product of genetic engineering – has gotten loose. And (here I'm putting on my deepest trailer-voice) it's huunnnggrryyy!

Let's focus on the eel for a second. It's big. And has lots of teeth that are, incidentally, pretty damn sharp. There're some cool scenes in Razortooth to be sure, but it's incredibly inept – I challenge anyone to pinpoint a competent reveal of the creature, a competently directed scene or a competently acted line. The best thing about this eel – and a fact that might upset Anguilliform purists – is that it moves on terra firma. I'll pause for a moment to allow that profundity to sink in. This eel swims on dicking land.

Razortooth was fun but it's certainly not brilliant – and it'd be a push to even say it's 'good'. The cinematic equivalent to Warheads, if you will – why the Christ they even pass your lips is a conundrum, but you just can't help it – it's funny as hell. If you've picked up a movie about killer eels (and the cover, a Photoshop at its cut-and-paste nadir), then you're a dolt for expecting anything more than shoddy effects and Bold and the Beautiful acting. Giant, slithering, man-eating fish just aren't a plot contrivance that studios care to pump money into. Which, in my opinion, is a damn shame.

Video

Good – video is presented in 1:78:1 with 16:9 enhancement. Colours look nice and rich, but commenting on the cinematography would be like flogging a dead horse – did I say the eel looks as if it was made in Blender?

Audio

Serviceable – one English Dolby 2.0 track. Another case of having to turn the volume up when there's dialogue, and turn it down when we get the eel doing its thing. And no subtitles either.

Extra Features

Trailers for other Anchor Bay releases; Behind the Mask, Welcome to the Jungle, Pucked, Blood Trails, Farce of the Penguins and Left in Darkness.

The Verdict

Look, you know what you're getting into from the get-go. And if you don't, let this line be the ultimate warning, or affirmation, depending where your filmic predilections lie, to you: Razortooth is about a mutant killer eel. I give it the rental nod – but killer eels really have to be your bag if you want to buy this ultimate in Z-grade direct-to-video. I still don't know whether a 3 out of 5 is much too generous, but it was far too entertaining in that fairy floss sort of a way to get anything less.