io9
In the tradition of Claire from Heroes, and Buffy of vampire slayage, the main character in the movie Teeth has developed a special power that allows her to survive high school. Deep inside her vagina, Dawn has a set of shark's teeth that will bite off anything she doesn't want in there. This movie, opening in select theaters today, has gotten a lot of attention for daring to depict the dreaded vagina dentata - or pussy with teeth - as something other than yuck. Dawn's "adaptation," as she calls it, isn't just a grossout thrill. It's the perfect vehicle for expressing the emotional truth of teenage sexual awakening. (Spoilers and dick chomping ahead.)
Dawn's mutant puss is her only source of power in the small, conservative town where she lives beneath a nuclear power plant and goes to a school where concerned parents have put giant gold stickers over pictures of the female anatomy in her textbook. Active in her local church chastity club, where she gives passionate speeches about virginity being a "gift," Dawn is a sexual innocent. And sexually repressed.
Inevitably, when Dawn starts to fall off the virginity wagon she does it with a guy who turns out to be a jerk. Instead of the heavy petting she's ready for, he tries to go all the way. And when Dawn resists, he knocks her head against some rocks and proceeds to have his way with her. Luckily, her puss never sleeps and we get our first glimpse of the extremely graphic results of Dawn's evolutionary advantage.
Terrified by what's happened, Dawn proceeds to fuck and bite her way through a series of awful male stereotypes (the molesting gynecologist, the sleazy pickup artist), slowly growing more confident that her vadge is there to protect her rather than plague her. Throughout the gore and stump-squirting and animals-eating-severered-penises (oh yes, we go there), Teeth exudes a genuine sense of dark fun and emotional urgency. You might even consider the teeth Dawn's fantasy, a way of coping with her tragic family life and a world whose sexual messages are often violently contradictory.
Director Mitchell Lichtenstein (son of the cartoony pomo artist Ray) wants his film to be a satire, and it works that way, though his targets are sometimes too broad and easy. There's a simplistic Red States = bad, men = rapists message here that comes across as a bit tinny at times. But you can forgive the film its excesses for the same reasons you forgave the brilliant rape-revenge flick Freeway, or the sexy-horror of werewolf puberty movie Ginger Snaps. Teenage sexual awakenings, especially for girls, are full of blood and guts and fear. That's what Teeth reflects.
For anyone who appreciates gory social satire, and thinks of high school as living on the Hellmouth, Teeth is your freaky date movie this weekend. The film is also a sharp rejoinder to the cloying Juno, which for all its great acting and true heartwarmingness, still got it wrong by reducing the nervous terror-pleasure of teen sexuality to sexless mommyhood. Dawn may be a mutant, but she's a real girl. And we're lucky that Lichtenstein isn't afraid to show us in graphic detail what that means.
Comments
The X-Man the comics couldn't show you...
It's telling this opened the same weekend as 27 Dresses and Cloverfield because they were all genre pictures and all followed genre rules, but only Teeth and Cloverfield decided to put a little twist on it. Cloverfield chose the ground level view of the screaming people you always see in giant monster movies but never gave a crap about, while this takes the route of satire, but like Cloverfield this never violates the rules of every B-level horror movie it's aping. It treats Dawn's problem like it would her turning into a werewolf; with a straight face. But given that you're supposed to be laughing it could have kicked the energy level up a bit. Satire does not always equal guffaws. The creepy gyno scene has more of what was needed, as do the "repair" operations.
And both movies lack a similar component: the know-it-all scientist who explains just what the hell is going on and how you might solve it. I was personally disappointed that Dawn's condition wasn't ultimately revealed as something in her family going back to ancient times. The "mutant" aspect or "evolutionary jump" given in the film was somewhat lacking. And Teeth was the only one of the three to lack another component you don't miss until it's gone: an actual hero. Granted it could be argued that Dawn was her own hero, but since you're following some many genre rules, why let this one go. It would have been funnier for the "twist" to be her unwilling to change instead of what they did use in place of the hero.
dude.
Killer Pussy had Lichtenstein beat years before he left Benington to make generic three-part body horror flicks.
Thank you for not including "after" pictures.
This sounds incredible.
she definitely has that "my vagina is about to guillotine your manhood" look in her eyes in that picture above
do the kids at school call her "the great pit of carkoon"?
Yawn. This is so '70's. Let's face it. Most women go through such terrible sexual awakenings because they always self-select for the jerk. It takes them years, if ever, to get past the whole sexy jock "Bad Boy", Nice guy =wimp thing. That and the whole man hating feminist screed is really tired folks.
@Macloserboy: I think the idea was that Dawn was the hero. I'm not sure you can even fit this film neatly into any one (or even 2 or 3) genres. It definitely had a coming of age story, gone horribly wrong, and a bit of family drama wrapped up with the B horror movie. From this gal's prospective, they took something quite unbelievable and supplanted it into a very believable situation and made it as human as it ws humorous.
@spudzill: Uh, you should see it before commenting.
@spudzill: Woah, way to generalize. Especially the "sexual awakening" stage of life. Cause, you know, the average teenager is really well schooled in determining positive attributes in a potential mate and just comes right out of the wonb with a predetermined type, right?
womb. duh
The idea is tired. I saw it twenty years ago, from a bootlegged anime. Old news. I mean would the reverse been something to watch? Geeky high school guy, gets the power to sexually mutilate the women who did him wrong? Great heroine you got there.
I have come to know and love the fact that if the headline has the word 'pussy' in it, I know without looking that Annalee wrote it.
@spudzill: Yeah, we bitches never know what's good for us. Good thing you're around to tell us!
@spudzill:
BioHunter was not bootleg anime.
When I heard the premise of this I immediately thought of Image of the Beast by Philip Jose Farmer.
REALLY? The son of Ray Lichtenstein?!
That's frikkin HILARIOUS!! And amazing! His dad must be so proud.
Well....I'm sure as hell curious
@spudzill: Simpsons did it!!
The average teen girl is taught by society as to the ordering of potential mates, but, most young women become attached to the nystique of these men due to a fatal attraction to power. this power is manifested, partly by the adoration given to young men in sports by the chering crowds at the stadium, the general contempt and harassment of other members of the student body, and the seeming immunity from censure from the faculty, who are either oblivious to these young boys torturous and boorish behavior, or complicit in ignoring them because of the income to the school that the spectators bring in watching the sports(usually football). These young ladies then, knowing full well how horrible these boys are to other people, go into relationships in the attempt to attain status in the eyes of the other young ladies and then are shocked, shocked, I tell you to find out these boys are pricks to them too. That and the whole lets make out but then refuse sex thing is a fucked up attempt by these girls to manipulate someones emotions as consenting in the first place should quite naturally lead one to believe in consenting to behavior connected to it, that being said any young man without the self control to stop is an evil little fuck and should be locked up. The sensible thing to do, of course ,would be to dump the girl.
...Wait what? HUH? That's a real movie?
@spudzill: You take things very seriously, don't you?
Thank you so much for giving the plot synopsis. That movie will never play within 200 miles of where I live.
@spudzill: Not as tired as some idiot claiming "feminist"="man-hating". I suggest you find a dictionary; feminism remains the fight for crazy old ideas like equal work for equal pay.
PS everything about your posts here screams "virgin!"
So do I get to be the first one to make the "No wonder there's a fishy smell?" joke?
@spudzill:
These young ladies then, knowing full well how horrible these boys are to other people, go into relationships in the attempt to attain status in the eyes of the other young ladies and then are shocked, shocked, I tell you to find out these boys are pricks to them too.
God forbid someone make mistakes! And learn from them the hard way! Or worse yet, have the indecency to not fit your stereotypes!
That and the whole lets make out but then refuse sex thing is a fucked up attempt by these girls to manipulate someones emotions as consenting in the first place should quite naturally lead one to believe in consenting to behavior connected to it, that being said any young man without the self control to stop is an evil little fuck and should be locked up.
We aren't allowed change our minds now? What?
I repeat what I said previously: VIRGIN.
Feminism does not equal man-hating, but many feminists do hate men. I'm not a vigin, no. OTH I have given up sex as my relationships have been very bad.
@spudzill: Dude, seriously, you need to see the movie before ranting. She actually LIKES the first guy in spite of his lack of everything you claim teenage girls go for.
@spudzill: You saw it in anime? Yeah, when I think of a well-reasoned examination of female sexuality I think of the home of tentacled raped of schoolgirls. There are absolutely no men more afraid of vaginas than the creators of anime.
@spudzill: Can't IMAGINE why your relationships didn't work out.
Looks great. I'll wait until it's a Netflix rentable though. BTW, he gay guys here at work can't stop laughing about this movie :-/ I suppose they could make their own version of this movie.
If you are into apparently innocent women becoming freakishly bizarre, check out "May".
@spudzill: No they don't. Feminism cuts both ways. A man-hating woman isn't a feminism, she's a misandrist. Do you judge all people who call themselves vegetarians as you would those PETA/ALF freaks who would like to murder butchers?
Equal work for equal pay is admirable and I support it fully. But, I do not shy away from ANYONE being treated badly. And yes I believe that bad choices should be scrutinized. The flip side to the changing you mind thing is that could mean that one does not keep ones word or live up to ones commitments. And not being able to take said person seriously.
@rose0red: Are you named after Fables or the original story?
@VivianDarkbloom: The original- I'm a big fan of the Grimms.
@spudzill: I can't imagine a worse fate than not being taken seriously by you.
You are correct about the misandrist term, and yes I should have been more precise. but examining the isssue of teen awakenings particularly in light of a visciously misandrist film is valid. Macloserboy of course they don't like women the creaters of Anime are Japanese. Rosered my relationships don't work out because I'm usually too nice. And I'm kind of boring as instead of going out dancing I stay at home and post on the internet.
This could have some potential if it explored what happens if the girl WANTS to have a normal sex life but just can't turn it off for some reason. After, of course they get all the blood and guts and disembodied penises out of the way...
Know how you can click that button to "follow a commenter"? There should be another option labeled "follow this commenter because he's such a tool it's bound to be entertaining."
Thank god we don't have any douchebag guys wanting to take advantage of pretty young women out here in Blue State country.
What if Dawn was a lesbian? What message would the film have then?
@VivianDarkbloom: LOVE your avatar, BTW.
Yes viviandarkbloom I do indeed suck. I'm the first to admit that. And no I am of no consequence even to people who know me personally much less to people who just read a couple of blog posts from me. I was just stating my opinion but, really, I'm a nobody, feel free to ignore me.
@FrankenPC: Awww, May is great! Not enough people have seen it, imo.
@spudzill:
of course they don't like women the creaters of Anime are Japanese.
..............you win, sir.
i take it you do liek mudkipz?
...at least it's not a sequel.
What are mudkipz. The Japanese are a highly patriarchal culture who generally EMBODY the concept of a fear of feminine sexuality. They themselves make those very statements, which is one of the reasons that so many Japanese men have such an intense schoolgirl fetish as the thought of a mature and sexually confidant woman intimidates them. They told me as such when I lived there.
@spudzill: Okay, you know what bud? I apologize. Apparently this definition is gleaned from your own personal (and limited) life experience, which consists of you being overlooked for some jock type.
My experiences at that age would put about five girls out of fifty into the category that you describe as the "average teen girl", but, then again, perhaps your test group is a handful.
Also, in MY personal experiences, there is no such thing as a relationship that doesn't work out for the simple reason that one of it's participants is "too nice", but good luck with that.
@DSTRYA: Yeah, that totally made my day.
Every time a guy whines that "all women only go for bad boys," I want to ask him what kinds of women he's hanging out with. Because if you think ALL women go for that type, you're obviously dismissing a large percentage of women out of hand. Like the kinds of geeky girls who like hanging out on boards like this to talk about scifi and cheesy horror. (Raises hand) I know what it's like to be considered a "buddy" rather than a potential mate or girlfriend, but I don't assume that's because all men are assholes. Why assume that all women are shallow bitches because you had a few bad experiences?
@rose0red: Thank you! Do you have a SVH site of choice?;)
@Blitzgal: Sure, not all women like arrogant, jerky jocks.
When said women get older and have been used and dropped a few times, of course.
But I don't blame 'em -- if I was a young teenage girl, I'd rather pick Mr. Hot Shit with the Hot Bod then Mr. Dweeb with F