Teeth (2007)
****
Wow did this blow my expectations out of the water. I went into this one expecting to be offended/repulsed by some misogynistic titillation fest. I remember seeing a poster of this a few years ago, and thinking that the premise of a girl using the teeth inside her vagina to castrate young dudes seemed to perfectly capture a whole genre of male fears of women's sexuality. Well, duh. Of course, I didn't get from the poster that this was indeed the whole point of the movie--a brilliant and understated satire built into a well paced and legitimately gory horror flick. It's just damn damn good stuff.
This gynecologist is about to be a few digits short.
A cute blonde high school girl, Dawn, opens the movie speaking at a "purity" rally--essentially the god squadder youth group, explaining to all the kids why sex is so horrible. That was probably my first inkling that this was going to be better than expected--the director totally nailed that whole religious youth retreat vibe. After her talk, Dawn meets the new guy, and the classic "ruh roh" scene happens where the two pubescent hormone machines collide. The first half of the movie then becomes sort of an indie-parody of an after-school special; we watch as the two innocents try to resist temptation. Of course, we know the title of the movie, and we've seen the two big nuclear cooling towers looming above Dawn's little brick ranch home, so we're watching this slow build of tension totally waiting for the payoff of weird freaky shit. And, fair to say, half expecting it to cop out when it comes to it. Nope. Totally worth it. Check this one out.
7 comments:
50P convincingly sold me on this movie's greatness and I already intended to watch it this year but now I'm doubly sold.
I love how you pointed out the "classic ruh roh scene". That can be applied to almost every horror movie!
Nice breakdown, Landshark. There's never really a good reason to pull a punch in a horror movie.
really good flick. it's always interesting to me when a movie that has such coarse subject matter nails the sensitive shit well. see: Carrie.
I loved this one as well, your review nails the character of the film.
I went to re-read my review of this film from last year and I realized that I never reviewed it - Damnit!
Nice review - I'm glad you dug this one. I should point out that we never get to see a tooth vagina. That might be a good thing.
VAGINA DENTATA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Huh - one I would have definitely avoided before knowing more details. Cool!
Post a Comment