Directed by Jillian Corsie, Tooth is a short film selected for the 2023 Slamdance Film Festival lineup. It is a terrifying tale set in one of the scariest and most dangerous places known to man — a woman’s bathroom.

Tooth begins with a woman diligently flossing her teeth when the quiet of her bathroom is interrupted by the clinking of her fallen tooth in her sink. As she looks away, only for a second, the tooth has disappeared. It is, however, quickly joined by all of her other teeth, which empty her mouth and begin to attack her.

With nary a word spoken, except for her screams, actress Janine Peck musters a believable look of terror while up against adorable-looking foes — animated teeth. Tooth teeters on horror comedy, using cute but violent animated teeth, who were made to go to war against their once toothy captive. It seems they are attacking her because of her overzealous flossing, but their motivation is not quite explained.

The teeth come marching one by one…to kill their overly hygienic owner. I do not believe Tooth had some PSA message or a moral to mull over, other than don’t over-floss your teeth. Despite its lack of rhyme or reason, Tooth is a fun short movie that displays good clean body horror fun. Besides actress Janine Peck putting on a one-woman show and delivering frame-worthy facial expressions, the other highlight of the short film Tooth was its music. Classical songs were used as a soundtrack to the teeth violently taking down their master, which served to drum up the epic feeling of this otherwise modest movie.

Tooth tells quite the epic story in a short four-minute span. This movie offers a small but impactful slice of body horror, showing how our body parts can turn on us, even if we do try to take care of them.

7 out of 10