By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * *)
One hundred years ago a woman named Matilda Dixon lived in a town called Darkness Falls, and you've got to love whoever came up with that name for a village in a horror movie.
The old woman loved children and would swap their baby
teeth for gold coins, so she became known as "the tooth fairy". But she was caught in a fire and burned so badly that it was too painful for her to go out in the daytime. When two children went missing, the town blamed Matilda and hanged her in the square. After her death the children were found safe and the town buried the secret forever.
Decades later we meet Kyle (Chaney Klay), who saw his mother killed by Matilda when he was a child. Because he looked into Matilda's face after losing his last tooth Kyle is in trouble with the "tooth fairy", too, so leaves town but returns to Darkness Falls to help his childhood sweetheart, Caitlin (Emma Caulfield, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and her little brother, Mike (Lee Cormie), who is about the age when ... Great schlock horror that's worth the rental.
DVD features: movie (85min); commentary tracks by director Jonathan Liebesman, producers William Sherak and Jason Shuman, screenwriter James Vanderbilt; and by screenwriters John Fasano and Joe Harris; Making Of ... ; The Legend of Matilda Dixon, 10-minute fictional history; 7 deleted scenes; 3 storyboard-to-screen comparisons.
DVD, video rental: October 8
