When vaginas attack
My review of "Teeth" is in the Chicago Sun-Times and on RogerEbert.com. (Also: "21" and "CJ7.") Here's an excerpt:
"Teeth" sinks its incisors into a cross-cultural myth known as vagina dentata. Or, as Juno might call it, "Vaggie D." Depending on who you ask (not that you should bring it up in polite intercourse), it is said to represent the male fear of castration and of feminine sexuality in general. It also symbolizes the woman's anxieties about penetration, and/or her desire to devour her mate, who is attempting to fulfill his own bio-mythological destiny by returning upstream to spawn in the womb from whence he originated. (Or, as the movie puts it, "the dark crucible that hatched him.")
Whether you view it as a primordial image from the collective unconscious or a practical warning against promiscuity, vagina dentata makes an indubitably memorable impression -- and an ideal premise for a tongue-in-cheek thriller about uncontrollable urges.
Writer-director Mitchell Lichtenstein's teen horror-(of)-sex comedy begins with a big visual pun about a different portion of the feminine anatomy: An impressive pair of atomic power-plant silos protrude from the horizon like... you know. The camera tilts down to the lawn of a suburban home where nuclear family fusion is about to occur. Bill (Lenny von Dohlen) and his son Brad (John Hensley) are about to join Kim (Vivienne Benesch) and her daughter Dawn (Jess Wexler) to form a single-household zygote. Mutations ensue....
Comments
I came out of this film with but a soundbite in my head. Alas, it's not fit for print on the comments section of a family-friendly blog such as Scanners (we all censor A-- C------, for God's sake), but let's just say the pun invoked one fairly overenthusiastic review of Cloverfield on Ain't It Cool News.
Dennis knows the one I'm talking about, at least...
Posted by: Ali Arikan | March 28, 2008 12:49 AM
Not that I can comment on your writing here as I have not seen the film, but I know I want to. The premise is enough to get me interested. "Vaggie D", hilarious!
Posted by: Nick Plowman | March 28, 2008 05:35 AM
Just want to say that "Vaggie D" line cracked me up pretty good, Jim.
Posted by: Clint | March 28, 2008 06:11 AM
Here is a key I overlooked to understand the BJ shot in the infamous last sequence of The Wayward Cloud!
;)
Posted by: HarryTuttle | March 28, 2008 10:17 AM
Jim, no review of Stop Loss?
JE: I haven't seen it. Somebody in Chicago was able to see it before it screened here in Seattle, so she reviewed it for the Sun-Times. I'm curious about it, though.
Posted by: Dan | March 28, 2008 12:26 PM
I cringed when you said "promise ring." Because it's what some Christian Nazis say God wants us to do, and disobeying God is illegal. Sieg heil!
JE: Dawn and her fellow abstainers actually wear "promise rings" -- and the movie does suggest something rather cultish about some of their collective behavior....
Posted by: Raymond Ogilvie | March 28, 2008 08:01 PM
Funny review. For the sequel, perhaps along with teeth, the vagina will sport some vocal chords. "Teeth 2: This Time with Throat!" or how about "Teeth Talks Back: The Vagina Monologues".
Posted by: anonymike | March 29, 2008 12:36 AM
Well, I for one am not surprised.
After centuries of being eaten,
it was only a matter of time before they starting to fight back.
Posted by: A. Medina | March 29, 2008 02:20 AM
Should be shown on a double bill with Killer Condom (1996, dir. Martin Walz).
Posted by: haspfallbazz | March 29, 2008 09:24 AM
There was a children's movie in 1979 called "C.H.O.M.P.S." Are the two movies related in any way?
JE: Bless you! I used "C.H.O.M.P.S." in one of my draft headlines, but I thought nobody would remember it!
Posted by: Douglas Soderberg | March 31, 2008 09:23 PM