Watching Teeth and Blood, I realized two things:
- Teeth and blood are the absolute minimum a vampire movie should have, so this one is aiming pretty low.
- Glenn Plummer is officially the black Eric Roberts.
Like Roberts, Plummer broke through in an acclaimed drama (South Central for Plummer, Runaway Train for the Oscar-nominated — let that sit in — Roberts) and had crossover exposure in blockbusters like the Speed movies, but now, he and Roberts are direct-to-video horror mainstays whose mere presence in a film triggers a lowering of expectations to sub-SyFy levels.
Following up dubious gems like Vegas Vampires and Voodoo Curse: The Giddeh, Plummer stars in Teeth and Blood (which he also produced and co-wrote) as Vincent Augustine, a successful movie director and somewhat less successful vampire in a world in which vampires can somehow walk around in daylight (probably because Plummer & Co. couldn’t afford to limit their shooting to nighttime).
Vincent’s master plan to move up the vampire hierarchy is to buy up blood banks in order to create a blood shortage and force all the thirsty vamps in the city to pledge allegiance to him. Things hit a snag, however, when a rogue vampire attack kills the leading lady in the film he’s shooting, drawing the attention of police.
That means foxy detective Sasha Colfax (Michelle Van Der Water) is on the case! She goes undercover with new partner, half-Asian/half-black Mike Hung (Sean Hutchinson) to infiltrate Vincent’s movie set. That’s right, it’s buddy cop time! With its ho-hum content, though, Teeth and Blood is less Rush Hour than it is Senior Citizens Driving on a Lazy Sunday Afternoon.
Sasha of course immediately lands the lead role vacated by the dead star, because, as Teeth and Blood shows, you don’t have to have any discernible talent to star in a movie. She and Mike prove to be terrible at undercover, however, and confess their identity to Vincent after minimal resistance…and yet he STILL allows Sasha to headline the film.
That’s because Vincent has the hots for her and uses his vampire hypnotism to woo her and…well, we’ve seen this movie before. Suffice it to say, Sasha has to deal with his advances, while Mike — who secretly has some vampire-fighting kung-fu background (being part Asian and all) — tries to uncover Vincent’s plot, and everyone has to face a plague of vampirism spreading through the set courtesy of some silly pimp acquaintance of Vincent’s who I assume is comic relief.
As far as Plummer’s recent genre fare goes, Teeth and Blood is actually a bit above par, if only because Van Der Water, who surprisingly has never landed a bigger part than Tony Todd’s sister in Minotaur, delivers a performance above the level of the material…plus, she’s purrty.
