Spoiler Warning 

Teeth is an interesting, disturbing, and funny movie.  It’s dramatized, comedified and horrorsized into something best described as odd.  Unlike most movies that blend into the pack and settle into history’s background, Teeth stands out among the rest.  Good or not this movie has carved out a place in horror history. 

For obvious reasons the film is potentially more frightening for men rather than women due to the risk of intimate dis-member-ment.  As a horror movie it does its job.  Most scenes are at least skirting the perimeter of uncomfortable, if not diving right in.  Just from the movie trailer we can see that this is not a movie for the faint of heart.  It’s not a heart pounding scare-fest as we’ve come to expect from most modern horror, but it does establish a dread for the general situation. 

The story:  a girl named Dawn was born with teeth in her vagina.  It’s pretty straight forward.  She’s a member of a Christian teen abstinence program, who runs into trouble with some of the towns male citizens.  There are only two or three men in this movie who aren’t completely despicable.  So, when the teeth make their presence known there’s no sympathy for the dudes who lose their doodles.  I’m not opposed to rapists getting their comeuppance, but I would’ve liked a prettier picture painted of the less fair sex.  Men are stereotypically represented as sex crazed creatures that treat women like portable holes in the ground, and Teeth does not deviate from this depiction.  It gets old.  For the most part, if it weren’t for Dawn’s father there would have been no redeeming male characters.  That aside, there is a degree of pleasure seeing horrible people have horrible things done to them.  Strangely there is a general fear for Dawn despite the fact she can obviously take care of herself.  I think it’s more of a moral fear for her innocence as opposed to her physical well being. 

I was looking for a bigger message than “Don’t rape people.”  Maybe the point of the movie is that rape is more common than people like to think and therefore makes Dawn’s particular mutation a necessary evolution.  The thing I picked up on the most is that sexual assailants can come from any background, and often are people close to the victim.  It also points out the ultimate failure of abstinence promotion organizations.  So it has a bit of a liberal statement. 

As for the humor, it relies heavily on the viewer’s ability to wish harm on the bad guys.  There’s a lot of played up crying, and screaming.  This was expected, but still funny and unsettling.  Also, it’s a bit over the top, and it knows it.  It uses overly dramatized music, and plot to make this disturbing topic more palatable for the humor taste buds.  There’s even a scene in which a person yells the term “vagina dentata” (the fear of or presence of a toothed vagina) as if it were a reasonably common phrase.  Granted it makes sense when considering the person it’s coming from, but still it’s funny. 

The Verdict:  It’s definitely worth a rent, but you’ll probably only watch it once.

It all started in 1974 when a man wearing a human mask made of skin began horrifying audiences with a cheap suit and a chainsaw. Nobody truly knows what it was that caused Leatherface to become the menacing horror icon he is today. Maybe it was the human skin masks, maybe it was the creepy dysfunctional family, or maybe it was the fact that he swung around a giant chainsaw to kill people.

Leatherface, circa 1974 and his more updated look in 2006.

Well, regardless of Leatherface’s chainsaw revving legacy, the chainsaw itself saw a decline in its horror-like appeal during the 80’s and 90’s, that is, until its recent menacing revival in the video game industry over the last few years.

Exhibit A) Resident Evil 4 & 5

I’m not sure which one’s scarier… a man wearing a potato sac over his head and a chainsaw, or a woman with a serious case of leprosy and a chainsaw? 50/50?

They were so pleased with the addition of the chainsaw villager(s) in RE 4 that they decided to release an actual chainsaw controller for both the Gamecube (pictured above) and PS2.

Resident Evil 4 marked the triumphant return of the chainsaw to its former horrifying glory. If you’ve played the game, which I highly recommend, then you should remember the very first time you heard the initial rev of the chainsaw in the opening village. Leon enters a Las Plagas infected village where the people are more interested on seeing what his insides look like than they are in his questions concerning the whereabouts of the president’s daughter. Leon proceeds by eradicating the hostile villagers with guns blazing. Everything seems to be fairly easy, and despite the anxiety from the swarming villagers, Leon can hold his own. However, the player suddenly hears a gas powered chainsaw rev up in the distance and automatically begins to panic. It doesn’t matter where you are in the village because the chainsaw maniac with a sac over his head (very reminiscent of Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13^th: Part 2) will find you and sever your head off. What’s even more unsettling than the wildly wielding chainsaw man is the fact that normal pistol bullets don’t necessarily halt his attempts towards you, and he seemingly never dies. I remember the first time I played the game, I sat there with my shotgun and unloaded shell after shell and he just kept getting back up with that damn chainsaw.

Resident Evil 5 hits store shelves sometime in Q1 of 2009. Watch out for flesh eating villagers and another giant chainsaw wielding guy. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Resident Evil 5 saw a lot of lime light at this year’s E3 and as a result we were rewarded one of the first glimpses at the new chainsaw bearer. Unlike sac-head from RE 4, this chainsaw man is tall, dark and eerily skinny, not to mention incredibly terrifying. I can only imagine that he’s faster, stronger and harder to kill than his RE 4 predecessor. I guess we’ll just have to wait until early next year to see this Leatherface wanna-be in action.

Exhibit B) Gears of War (series)

You probably can’t see from the ridiculous amount of blood in this screen shot, but that is in fact a Locust getting chainsawed…Ouch?

You can say whatever you want about how awesome Gears of War was, and I’ll let you say what you’re looking forward to most about G of W II; however, deep down in your heart you know that the coolest thing about this rather new franchise was the inclusion of the chainsaw gun. You know the feeling of injuring your opponent just enough to finish them with the chainsaw or sneaking up on them and anticipating the future satisfaction of unleashing the chainsaw upon their unbeknownst self.

Gears of War quickly became the 360’s flagship game in 2006. Its mission was to satisfy gamers until 2007’s release of Halo 3, yet the franchise became something entirely bigger than itself. Later this year, gamers will have another great chance to get to chainsawing the helpless in full force and online in Gears of War 2.

Exhibit C) Mad World

Not much has been revealed about this mysterious game in development for the Wii, but one can see from this screen above that it looks particularly friendly. The game’s visuals are strictly black and white with a barrage of red that frequently paints the screen. Players assume the role of Jack, who as it seems has a thirst for blood and lots of it. There hasn’t been any news on the game’s plot or an in-depth view at the protagonist’s life. All people know right now is that Jack likes to kill people, and he likes to do it in several different ways – one of them being with a chainsaw, which just so happens to be built into his arm. This is a great addition because being as it is a Wii game, players will have the opportunity, nay, the privilege to personally wave their Wii remotes as if they were make-shift chainsaws – umm, yes!

So what was the leading cause to rekindle the dying fire of chainsaws in the media? And why did the video game industry choose to be the fuel to the fire? I haven’t the slightest idea, but I like it…I like it…a lot.

If you have any other chainsaw oriented games that I neglected to mention, feel free to shoot me a comment.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Dillon (D-Dub)