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.

The first Creepshow was a treat.  George A. Romero and Stephen King teamed up to create a cute, though creepy, vignette horror movie.  I must admit I haven’t seen the second Creepshow, but it surely can’t be any worse than the third installment.

Fans of the franchise should stay away from this movie.

This, like the others, is a vignette movie.  It does try to go places the first one didn’t.  In a Pulp Fiction-esque style, all of the segments happen in the same universe and pretty much in the same town.  Characters overlap, and it isn’t entirely in chronological order.  Pulp Fiction was very carefully organized to optimize dramatic build and keep the viewer from getting too confused.  Unfortunately for Creepshow 3 it isn’t clever enough to be anywhere near successful at this.  To some extent it doesn’t matter, but anybody actually paying attention will ask the ever burning question, “Huh?” when they see the one scene that takes place out of order.  Creepshow 1 had a through plot tying all the individual stories together about a boy reading Creepshow Comics in which each story appeared in the comics the boy read while not happening in the same continuity.  It was a throwback to EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt, and the Vault of Horror.  Number three was basically a throwback to nothing.  I could make a vomit joke about Creepshow 3 involving the word throwback, but I’ll refrain.

The individual stories aren’t necessarily bad they’re just not good.  It tries to maintain a slightly humorous feel like the first one, but only succeeds at developing a corny insincerity that plagues the whole movie.  Its comedic timing and content is fit only for the majorly stoned.  As for the horror aspects, they’re not much better.  It has a few interesting moments.  It isn’t entirely predictable, but it’s ultimately not surprising.  The best story out of the group is the very last complete story, and even it wasn’t worth waiting the whole movie for.

The acting is amateurish which is forgivable depending on the sum of all the elements.  For example, the acting in Kevin Smith’s Clerks (1994) wasn’t the most astounding, and relied mostly on the raw charisma of Jeff Anderson (Randal Graves).  This is evidence that inexperienced screen actors are no excuse for irritating characters.

The Verdict:  This was an effort not worth undertaking.  Don’t even rent it if you can help it.

-Vince