It’s hard to find a list of common fears that doesn’t include trips to the dentist. For one reason or another people cannot seem to keep calm when men or women dressed in all white want to put giant pieces of steel in their mouth and poke around. We could debate all day why that is, but for the sake of brevity let’s just accept that tooth doctors are terrifying people and anyone who would be excited to spend time in their death chairs must be completely out of their mind or a masochist to the most extreme degree. If that applies to you, the following short may do little to make your skin crawl. If you’re one of those who would rather do your taxes than get a filling however, prepare to never want to make another dentist’s appointment again.

The Root Of The Problem is the latest short from Maine-bred filmmaker Ryan Spindell. The film tells the tale of a woman visiting a rather creepy dentist’s office in the mid-1950s and the possible hallucinations that soon follow. She’s nervous from the moment she arrives, but when the dentist begins to tell her to true origin of the mythical creature known as the tooth fairy, things begin to take a turn for the worst. Is she safe? Is the man in the white coat there for her health? Is he even a man? All this and more races through the woman’s mind as the gas begins to make its way through her system. She fights to stay awake, partly because she fears she may never wake up again, but whether or not she’s successful is something you’ll have to see the short to find out.

It can be hard to deliver truly original ideas in the confines of a short film. You have to introduce a unique problem, explain it, fight it, and then find a solution in a matter of minutes without skimming over any of the details viewers may need to fully understand what’s going on. Ryan Spindell has pulled of this feat with The Root Of The Problem, delving a fun-yet-scary twist on a common fear that leaves viewers wanting to share the story with friends. I don’t know if he’s considered developing a feature, but it’s certainly something I would pay to see in a heartbeat. You can view the trailer for The Root Of The Problem below.

I know it can be frustrating to discover great shorts online that are not available to stream or purchase, but rest assured we are doing everything we can to make The Root Of The Problem available in the months ahead. We’d love to tell you more, but at this point you’ll have to guess as to what we have planned and wait until more information becomes available.

Written by: James Shotwell (follow him on Twitter)

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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