Remember when you were little and believed that if you placed your baby teeth under your pillow before you went to sleep, the tooth fairy would come and take it, leaving you money? Well, now horror writer Tyler Glodt has taken the legend to the era of the California Gold Rush in his short film The Tooth Fairy, which is streaming on Alter’s YouTube channel. Check it out at the end of the article — it might just inspire your next script for the Killer Shorts Horror Short Screenplay Competition.
The Gold Rush
I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about the era in question, aside from what I learned all the way back in elementary school. But this review probably could still use at least a little background.
So, once gold was discovered in California, a frenzy swept the nation. People abandoned their lives to embark on the long journey to the Golden State so they could perform backbreaking labor to strike it rich. And it only stopped because… nobody struck it rich.
All right, probably not “nobody,” but, as it turns out, gold was not as easy to find as they were led to believe. They worked all day, and if they were lucky, they maybe found a speck of it. This leads us to…
The Plot
The main character in The Tooth Fairy isn’t having much luck. Right from the beginning, we see him mining, and he thinks he’s found something, only to realize it’s a human tooth. Never a pleasant thing to find anywhere, but especially bad here.
Despite his disappointment, he puts the tooth into a box of his own private stuff before he goes to sleep. When he wakes up, he sees it’s been replaced with a gold nugget. A big one.
He can’t live off of mining alone, but he’s found an easy way to get more gold. Of course, it’s going to cost him.
The force that takes the teeth, whether it be a magical fairy or some other force entirely, may or may not be malicious on purpose. But it does feed on desperation and greed, even if it doesn’t know what it’s doing to them.
In the long run, the real villain is the pioneer’s desperation. The force that drove him to harm himself just to make some gold. And that desperation will strike someone else soon.
Conclusion
The Tooth Fairy is a western horror with bite (pun intended).
It has a creepy atmosphere. The “tooth fairy” is a disturbing presence from what little we see of it. Whether it’s the hand slowly going into the tent, or the cold whisper asking for a sacrifice, it’s sure to leave you unnerved, as it leads our hero into his downward spiral.
The ending could use a little work. It feels a little anticlimactic. But overall, it’s an interesting look into the desperation of the time, combined with a creepy atmosphere and a disturbing glimpse into human nature.
Check it out below:
Connect with the Filmmakers:
https://www.instagram.com/tylerglodt/
https://www.facebook.com/thetoothfairymovie
https://www.tylerglodt.com
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3456163/
To find more great horror short films to watch for inspiration, check out ALTER’s Youtube Channel.
