Teeth: Doomed to be Cult Classic
posted by snarko on Tuesday, February 5 2008
Black-Comedy/Horror that Delivers
This is gonna be a hard sell. Are you one of those people who normally only chuckles once in a while, and starve for more intelligent humor than a fart joke? YOUR MOVIE.
As long as you also aren't so uppity or skweemy you can't watch horror. But on that scale, I'd have to call TEETH really low. This is the best black-comedy I've seen in ages, but hard to recommend blindly, due to complexity of story and intelligence of humor.
There's no "camp" here. It's subtle. If you get it, YOU'RE REALLY GONNA GET IT, and bless the director for actually making YOU laugh, for once.
Okay, Da Trailer. At the Alamo--an audience of true picky film enthusiasts--most other trailers were greeted with the usual "ho-hum". Not that these movies might not be great; but we've seen WAY too many of them to get excited any more.
English-released period piece. Snooze.
European "coming of age" story. Snooze.
Action story with some bad-cop/good-cop story line, a few decent jokes, and big explosions. Snooze.
Then this:
When it went to black, the packed Alamo house--usually bored by this--went into an uproar. Laughing, choking (from surprise), clapping, cheering... and when the rose went up, non-stop laughter, standing ovation, and several people screaming "BRING IT ON!!!" Too bad Lichtenstein didn't see this. We didn't even know he was LOCAL: this is an Austin film. HELL YES we'll take a new story line--especially one this absurd/possibly funny!!! We don't care if it's a "B" genre; quit BORING us!!!
TEETH DELIVERS TO THIS CROWD.
Rated R for disturbing sequences involving sexuality and violence, language and some drug use.
[Lemme break that down for the non-Alamo types, after seeing it:
Sexuality: Mostly awkward teenage coming-of-age scenarios, plus you do see a penis; if this stuff turns you on you're weird. I'd let my 12-year-old daughter watch it, if I had one. But I'd also be willing to answer the ensuing questions.
Violence: If a fan of it in horror, this isn't gonna go there enough. Far more "psychological". On black-comedy/horror scale, Sean of the Dead has 10X more violence.
Language: They swear a few times. I can't even remember, as none are that over-top.
Drug use: I don't remember? I think there's a scene with her step-brother hitting a bong and that's it? Like, if your kid watched it, they're simply going to miss it.
I'd let ANY teenager watch it. Let the boys freak, cuz the good ones aren't going to, and the bad ones are about to get a wake-up call. Pre-teen maybe no; that'd be a maturity-call individually-based.
It's not THAT sexual, violent, nothing: just real. I don't see any harm in letting teens know what their own body is doing to them at this second. I think that breeds worse than telling them flat-out "this is what's going on." I believe in Truth.]
OKAY that long aside aside, Jess Weixler (who plays Dawn) IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!! She NAILS complex/confused emotions really, really well. She's a "teen" and never gives up her core character, ever. BUT she shows "confused" and "perplexed" insanely well. She's a DELIGHT to watch. I hope she gets many, many more roles, as I'm now a hardcore fan.
This is that "smart person shit" I mentioned before; you get bored watching these people go through motions. Weixler's engaging, true, complicated, interesting, sympathetic even if you think "no sex before marriage" is a fucking joke. She's GREAT. She does all sides of her character TO HILT.
She never, ever, stops being the Texan "girl next door", even with blood on her, and she's just an amazing actress. Joe and I both adored her.
Oh, humor? I mentioned that. There's at least four flat-out jokes in the trailer: if you got none of them, don't see it.
Every woman not kept will love it.
Men? You go into three categories for this movie, and it isn't a "chick flick" (director's a dude):
ALPHA MALE: Don't bother. But I encouraging your pissed-off girlfriend to drag you there.
REST OF THE MALES: You go into two categories, depending on how much you're attached to that penis.
CATEGORY 1: You're gonna laugh your head off, as you've absolutely no attachment as to the scenarios these dudes put themselves into. You simple wouldn't, can't relate, and your dick is safe.
CATEGORY 2: You're gonna laugh but wince at times, as MAYBE you'd go there and/or visualize your own dick more. This is fair warning.
Who trained that dog? I mean, he/she's really good, even comic timing.