All of us keep in mind the place we have been the primary time we watched a crab eat a person’s severed penis. For a lot of millennials, it was late at night time on our buddy’s sofa, sitting huddled up in a bunch of friends, gazing on the tv display screen with a combination of horror and delight. “What on this planet was that?”
That was Tooth, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s 2007 horror-comedy a few woman whose physique hides a surprising secret: the within of her vagina is lined with rows of sharp enamel, able to chomp down on any undesirable intruder, to violent, bloody, and oftentimes darkly hilarious outcomes. It is tough to think about {that a} film with that description might have ever gotten made, not to mention turn into one thing of a cult hit, and Lichtenstein himself can be the primary to level out that its journey from web page to display screen was not a simple one.
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“LOL! Nobody was recreation for it,” he says over electronic mail of the film which simply celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of its theatrical launch this January. “I had a supervisor on the time who informed me, ‘By no means present this script to anybody.'” As soon as he had gathered the funds to make it himself, he and his crew scouted places in Austin, Texas with the native movie commissioner, who was completely useful on the primary day after which by no means confirmed up on the second. “Turned out he hadn’t learn the script earlier than, and did learn it the night time after our first scout,” Lichtenstein says. “He known as all of the places he had proven us the day earlier than and warned them to not lease to us, that we have been doing porn.”
[Courtesy of Roadside Attractions]
Tooth follows Daybreak O’Keefe (Jess Weixler), a sheltered, all-American good woman who devoutly follows the purity tradition of Christian abstinence group the Promise, talking in entrance of scholar assemblies in regards to the significance of saving oneself for marriage. Her attraction to Tobey (Hale Appleman), a tall, good-looking, curly-haired boy in her tight knit group of buddies, threatens to upend her strict code of no hanky-panky. One night time, she and Tobey (sadly for him) uncover her secret: When he forces himself on her after a flirty but chaste swim in an area lake, he, nicely, will get his dick bitten off.
The film was impressed by the surprisingly pervasive delusion of the “vagina dentata,” folktale that pops up all around the world, from the Indigenous legends of North and South America to Hindu and Māori mythology. Lichtenstein first discovered about it in a school course on late nineteenth century literature taught by none aside from social feminist critic Camille Paglia. “Variations of the parable seem in lots of cultures all through the world,” he says. “And it sneaks, disguised, into in style tradition. Simply certainly one of many examples is the feminine monster in Aliens that, with its nicely lubricated enamel, has been described as a vagina dentata determine. It appeared to me that by disguising the parable in in style tradition, we’re perpetuating it, but when we confirmed it straight, we’d expose the absurdity of it — the absurdity of males ascribing this attribute to ladies. The parable says little or no about ladies, however an entire lot about males.”
[Courtesy of Roadside Attractions]
Like its protagonist, Tooth is much more than meets the attention, utilizing a grossly misogynistic trope to inform a gratifyingly feminist story. In that sense, it is a horror film solely to the kind of particular person — a very attractive teen boy, a handsy gynecologist, a traitorous buddy — that Daybreak’s enamel would assault. “I all the time considered Daybreak’s enamel as a superpower, and her journey with them follows the identical arc as most superhero origin tales,” Lichtenstein explains. “First unaware that they’ve the facility, then horrified by it, then studying its guidelines, then accepting it, and eventually maybe reveling in it. In case you take a look at de Palma’s Carrie, which I take into account to be a superhero film, it’s just about the identical arc, minus the indiscriminate slaughter on the finish. Daybreak will solely use her superpower towards these deserving of it.”
It is this sense of nuance and a focus to element that make Tooth somewhat extra “elevated” than the B-movies it is lovingly emulating — like The Gorgon, a 1964 Hammer horror a few monster that takes the type of a lady and terrorizes a small city, which Daybreak’s stepbrother Brad (John Hensley) watches on TV. That is additionally what received it into the primary competitors slate on the 2007 Sundance Movie Competition, as a substitute of the Midnight part the place extra easy horror flicks are showcased. It manages to sincerely dramatize a younger woman navigating the expertise of sexual assault, whereas additionally holding a sly comedic tone all through, thanks partly to Weixler’s advanced and genuinely humorous portrayal of Daybreak and Lichtenstein’s dedication to not eroticize any of the assaults. It satirized the tradition of the 2000s: overly sexualized horror, obsession with purity, George W. Bush-ian state-mandated abstinence teachings. In an early scene, college students in a intercourse ed class are disturbed by the truth that their textbook pages depicting the feminine reproductive anatomy have been obscured with large stickers. “They confirmed the penis image,” one scholar argues. “That is completely different,” the flustered instructor replies.
[Courtesy of Roadside Attractions]
As she learns how her newly found enamel work, Daybreak turns into extra used to them, maybe a metaphorical parallel to any younger particular person rising extra comfy with their physique as soon as they study to disregard the disgrace pushed on them by the surface world. By the top of the movie, Daybreak’s enamel have developed from a horrifying, uncontrollable deformity to a weapon towards transgressors, able to be deployed towards anybody who threatens Daybreak — and, by extension, any girl — with sexual violence. This willingness to see Daybreak as extra than simply an object of terror and disgust makes Tooth deserving of the identical feminist horror reclamation because the likes of Ginger Snaps, The Craft, and Jennifer’s Physique.
“I knew there was a hazard of individuals seeing the film as misogynistic as a result of I depict the misogynistic delusion of vagina dentata,” Lichtenstein says. “However I hoped that individuals would see that I’m satirizing the thought of males ascribing this attribute to ladies, and that I’m turning the parable on its head in order that the girl shouldn’t be the monstrous determine, however the males who assault her are.” In different phrases, a cautionary story with a critical chew.
