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Movie review: Teeth
I haven't posted a movie review for ages, have I? Well, my movie this week was one I've been looking forward to for a while.
There have been some pretty horrific movies in the history of cinema. When The Exorcist was first released, it was so shocking people were carried out of early screenings on stretchers and nuns lurked outside theatres to bless the people coming out so the devil wouldn't get them. When the last Saw movie came out, there were stories about people becoming so ill from watching it the cinema staff had to call ambulances. And I've frequently seen extra warnings on movies, like for strobe lighting effects.
Today was the first time I've ever bought a movie ticket and had the person who sold it to me warn me it's really gruesome and "are you really sure you're ready for that?"
The movie was Teeth and, yes, the person who felt it necessary to warn me was male.
A movie about teengage boys getting their dicks ripped off really shouldn't be funny. But it really, really is. Funny in a sick kinda way, but truly hilarious. (Not a film for women who are triggered by sexual violence, though.)
Okay, yeah, it's a horror movie. It's also black comedy, satire, and badly-acted B-movie crap. But if you're a woman who once went to school with boys who thought it was funny to bet money on which girls would put out, if you've ever dated a guy who thought a kiss meant he was entitled to sex, if you ever went with a guy you really liked who turned out to be the worst kind of jerk...you'll probably find this funny. Just don't take a (male) date to this movie.
Most of the critics have described Teeth as a satire on the whole American purity pledge movement. The thing about satire is your audience really needs to be familiar with what's being satirised for the humour to really bite (Er...poor choice of words there. Sorry). And I'm not all that familiar with the whole pledge thing. I know the what it's about, but it's just not a part of my culture. So I've probably missed a lot of stuff. Me? I'd call the film a cautionary tale about male privilege.
Jess Weixler plays Dawn, an all-American schoolgirl who is a big advocate of the whole chastity pledge thing. The movie opens with her making a speech to a group of kids about how virginity is a precious gift you should save until you get married. She seems like a nice kid and is sincere about it all...but she's also a teenage hormone bomb and apparently the pledge means masturbation is banned too. She's having sexual fantasies about a boy at her school - apparently involving him going down on her while she's in her wedding dress. (See, I told you it was funny.) Things progress as things usually do between heterosexual teenagers; meanwhile we see bits and pieces of the rest of Dawn's life: her mother is sick with some unspecified condition, her step-father is...well, he's there, and her stepbrother is to put it mildly, a dick. Actually, all the men in Dawn's life (except her step-father) are dicks...and this time the pun is definitely intended.
You know all those films and TV shows where the guy forces sex on a girl, or drugs her or pressures her into it and everyone behaves as if it's her fault because she obviously asked for it and is a slut while he gets away with rape with no consequences? This movie makes up for them all.
Dawn's boy-next-door, pro-pledge boyfriend thinks it's okay to rape her while she's unconscious because he hasn't even jerked off for a while. And what happens is exactly what ought to happen to every man who thinks that's acceptable behaviour. It seems Dawn has a row of teeth inside her vagina that would make the Sarlacc envious. Castration shouldn't be funny, any more than rape should ever be played for laughs, but the way this is filmed, it just is. I guess it wouldn't be if the jerk didn't have it coming.
Anyhow, Dawn is naturally freaked out by this and visits a gynaecologist to get checked out. He's a sleaze who...well, let's say he behaves in a seriously unprofessional manner and he loses his fingers. This is simultaneously the funniest and most disturbing scene in the film; I think because the power-dynamic is so completely on his side - most of the other scenes are teen-teen.
This isn't a realistic movie. I guess that goes without saying, but I want to say it anyway. Dawn's - er - unique condition aside, the special effects are pretty cheesy and the acting in those scenes is overdone (deliberately so, I think). There is a token effort to show what a horrible experience all this is for Dawn, but it's rather undermined by the one time she has sex with someone fully intending to cut his dick off - something you can see coming a mile off because the film-makers are determined the audience will agree he really deserves it. (And he so does...but he's the least realistic character because of that.) The result is, well, not disappointing exactly, but I feel like there's a really fantastic film struggling to emerge from under this one. The film is good but it's not fantastic. I will give the director major props for one thing, though: despite the humour in many of the violent scenes, the film never once gives the impression that rape is something to laugh at. Those scenes are disturbing in their familiarity and it's only when the tables turn that the humour kicks in.
[A fannish digression: There's a line in there at one point about Dawn's condition being present in myths from ancient cultures all over the world. I forget the exact quote, but it sorta made me flash on Supernatural because it's so similar to what they kept saying about stuff in the first season. And this line is followed by something about needing a "hero" to overcome the monster...and suddenly I was picturing Dean Winchester trying it on with this gal and I'm sorry but I really wish... Yeah.]
The most disappointing part is the very end. This is where the script forgets it has a somewhat feminist message to send and instead takes the cheap-and-easy B-movie route. There were, I think, three possible ways Dawn's story could have ended. She could choose to indulge her powers for evil (I don't really think there's a way she could use her power for "good"); she coud enter a convent (or something else that means never ever having sex again); or she could become a sexually fulfilled woman in control of her own sexuality. Guess which one they didn't pick.
Nah, I'm not gonna give it away.
I will stop short of actually recommending this movie; but if you're female and your sense of humour runs to the dark side, you'll probably enjoy it.
ETA: On a totally unrelated note - M&S fresh strawberries with vanilla liqueur cream are absolute heaven.
ETA2: for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thanatos_kalos: have you seen this?
There have been some pretty horrific movies in the history of cinema. When The Exorcist was first released, it was so shocking people were carried out of early screenings on stretchers and nuns lurked outside theatres to bless the people coming out so the devil wouldn't get them. When the last Saw movie came out, there were stories about people becoming so ill from watching it the cinema staff had to call ambulances. And I've frequently seen extra warnings on movies, like for strobe lighting effects.
Today was the first time I've ever bought a movie ticket and had the person who sold it to me warn me it's really gruesome and "are you really sure you're ready for that?"
The movie was Teeth and, yes, the person who felt it necessary to warn me was male.
A movie about teengage boys getting their dicks ripped off really shouldn't be funny. But it really, really is. Funny in a sick kinda way, but truly hilarious. (Not a film for women who are triggered by sexual violence, though.)
Okay, yeah, it's a horror movie. It's also black comedy, satire, and badly-acted B-movie crap. But if you're a woman who once went to school with boys who thought it was funny to bet money on which girls would put out, if you've ever dated a guy who thought a kiss meant he was entitled to sex, if you ever went with a guy you really liked who turned out to be the worst kind of jerk...you'll probably find this funny. Just don't take a (male) date to this movie.
Most of the critics have described Teeth as a satire on the whole American purity pledge movement. The thing about satire is your audience really needs to be familiar with what's being satirised for the humour to really bite (Er...poor choice of words there. Sorry). And I'm not all that familiar with the whole pledge thing. I know the what it's about, but it's just not a part of my culture. So I've probably missed a lot of stuff. Me? I'd call the film a cautionary tale about male privilege.
Jess Weixler plays Dawn, an all-American schoolgirl who is a big advocate of the whole chastity pledge thing. The movie opens with her making a speech to a group of kids about how virginity is a precious gift you should save until you get married. She seems like a nice kid and is sincere about it all...but she's also a teenage hormone bomb and apparently the pledge means masturbation is banned too. She's having sexual fantasies about a boy at her school - apparently involving him going down on her while she's in her wedding dress. (See, I told you it was funny.) Things progress as things usually do between heterosexual teenagers; meanwhile we see bits and pieces of the rest of Dawn's life: her mother is sick with some unspecified condition, her step-father is...well, he's there, and her stepbrother is to put it mildly, a dick. Actually, all the men in Dawn's life (except her step-father) are dicks...and this time the pun is definitely intended.
You know all those films and TV shows where the guy forces sex on a girl, or drugs her or pressures her into it and everyone behaves as if it's her fault because she obviously asked for it and is a slut while he gets away with rape with no consequences? This movie makes up for them all.
Dawn's boy-next-door, pro-pledge boyfriend thinks it's okay to rape her while she's unconscious because he hasn't even jerked off for a while. And what happens is exactly what ought to happen to every man who thinks that's acceptable behaviour. It seems Dawn has a row of teeth inside her vagina that would make the Sarlacc envious. Castration shouldn't be funny, any more than rape should ever be played for laughs, but the way this is filmed, it just is. I guess it wouldn't be if the jerk didn't have it coming.
Anyhow, Dawn is naturally freaked out by this and visits a gynaecologist to get checked out. He's a sleaze who...well, let's say he behaves in a seriously unprofessional manner and he loses his fingers. This is simultaneously the funniest and most disturbing scene in the film; I think because the power-dynamic is so completely on his side - most of the other scenes are teen-teen.
This isn't a realistic movie. I guess that goes without saying, but I want to say it anyway. Dawn's - er - unique condition aside, the special effects are pretty cheesy and the acting in those scenes is overdone (deliberately so, I think). There is a token effort to show what a horrible experience all this is for Dawn, but it's rather undermined by the one time she has sex with someone fully intending to cut his dick off - something you can see coming a mile off because the film-makers are determined the audience will agree he really deserves it. (And he so does...but he's the least realistic character because of that.) The result is, well, not disappointing exactly, but I feel like there's a really fantastic film struggling to emerge from under this one. The film is good but it's not fantastic. I will give the director major props for one thing, though: despite the humour in many of the violent scenes, the film never once gives the impression that rape is something to laugh at. Those scenes are disturbing in their familiarity and it's only when the tables turn that the humour kicks in.
[A fannish digression: There's a line in there at one point about Dawn's condition being present in myths from ancient cultures all over the world. I forget the exact quote, but it sorta made me flash on Supernatural because it's so similar to what they kept saying about stuff in the first season. And this line is followed by something about needing a "hero" to overcome the monster...and suddenly I was picturing Dean Winchester trying it on with this gal and I'm sorry but I really wish... Yeah.]
The most disappointing part is the very end. This is where the script forgets it has a somewhat feminist message to send and instead takes the cheap-and-easy B-movie route. There were, I think, three possible ways Dawn's story could have ended. She could choose to indulge her powers for evil (I don't really think there's a way she could use her power for "good"); she coud enter a convent (or something else that means never ever having sex again); or she could become a sexually fulfilled woman in control of her own sexuality. Guess which one they didn't pick.
Nah, I'm not gonna give it away.
I will stop short of actually recommending this movie; but if you're female and your sense of humour runs to the dark side, you'll probably enjoy it.
ETA: On a totally unrelated note - M&S fresh strawberries with vanilla liqueur cream are absolute heaven.
ETA2: for
thanatos_kalos: have you seen this?