Personally I can’t imagine how they could make a film called The Tooth Fairy and expect it to be more horrifying than the one with Dwayne Johnson and its sequel with Larry the Cable Guy. Well Louisa Warren (Scarecrow’s Revenge) tried in 2019. I didn’t see it, but somebody must have because now she’s back with Tooth Fairy: The Root of Evil, (or Tooth Fairy 2 or Return of the Tooth Fairy, take your pick). Can it be as horrifying as Larry the Cable Guy in a tutu?

Fifteen years after the original massacre a now grown Corey (Jake Watkins, Cupid) has graduated from university and lives in London. His buddy Edgar (Gus Fithen) turns up to invite him to a reunion. He’s not interested until he’s told that Hazel (Venetia Cook) was asking about him.

However, one of the other guests Paul (AJ Blackwell, Don’t Speak) lost a cousin in that same killing spree. He doesn’t think it was a coincidence that Corey survived. He’s got plans to prank him. Plans that involve a book of spells and incantations…

Tooth Fairy: The Root of Evil, starts out as expected. Corey still suffers the mental effects of the original film’s events. He hallucinates, blacks out and generally acts like somebody you wouldn’t invite to something like this. Or somebody who’s about to go on a killing spree of his own. We hear news on the radio about a family being murdered. And of course, Paul is going to take things way to far…

The script by Tom Jolliffe (Witches of Amityville Academy, Cyber Bride) does deliver scares and some moments of dental destruction that will make you squirm. But it also plays it safe, never really straying far from what is becoming a very tired formula. In fairness, he was probably hired to do just that. And he put more effort into it than the writers of a lot of mass-produced stuff coming out of the UK lately.

However Tooth Fairy: The Root of Evil really suffers in the effects department. It does get a lot of mileage out of the effective use of sound. But this is film not radio, showing some of the carnage helps. The real problem though is the Tooth Fairy itself. It never looks like anything other than someone in a mask. Probably a plastic one judging by the way it reflects the light. If you’re going to make a monster movie, you should at least get the monster right.

ITN will be releasing Tooth Fairy: The Root of Evil in the US.