Teeth

I had high hopes for this movie. I expected kind of a ridiculous, B-movie blend of horror and teen drama with some comedy thrown in. Which I suppose is basically what it was, but I nonetheless feel a bit disappointed. The movie is just... stupid. What's strange about it is that on the one hand, I almost want to say that it could have been so much better, but when you think about it, maybe not. I mean, the premise - chaste, pro-Abstinence teenager turns out to have man-eating genitalia - can really only get you so far. 

Still, the film starts out kind of clever, trying to bring together discourses of abstinence, anxiety about nuclear power and pollution, and an interest in horror films in some kind of intriguing way. With a bit of parodying of teen drama thrown in. But then it seems to decide that this is a bit too complicated, and just kind of recklessly starts doing stuff, mostly for the hell of it. There's this totally bizarre side-plot with the step-brother that is completely preposterous, and way too paging-Dr-Freud. And the main character is completely opaque - she's just kind of a walking talking man-eating black box. The narrative style is also really weird, a sort of meandering episodic jigsaw that never really comes together.

What ultimately annoyed the hell out of me in the movie was the fact that, aside from the step father, every male character was ultimately revealed to be a predatory jerk. I suppose the point was that you weren't ever supposed to pity the mutilated males, but I mean, come on, ultimately any male that you get to know a little better turns out to be a rapist. Though it must be said that having a teenager roofie a girl and then bust out the candles and champagne, and then! a vibrator! was kind of fantastic - I totally forgave him for drugging her first. And their sex scene was actually pretty hot. I was really bummed when he turned out to be a jerk. In any case, yeah, while the initial direction of the film seemed like this curious move to make her vaginal teeth a symbol for the horror latent in the Sexual Abstinence movement, it was totally undermined when all men turned out to be brutal jerks who clearly don't deserve to get laid, ever. 

Meh. It was a let-down.