Saturday 3 October 2009

Teeth (Mitchell Lichtenstein 2007)

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival in 2007 and winning the Special Jury Prize for Jess Weixler's performance as Dawn, Teeth is a little horror film that evidently knows its film theory... Steven Shaviro argues (here) that the film is 'gruseome, campy and affecting in more or less equal measure - though the affectingness ultimately wins out'. Having read a number of positive reviews of the film and being particularly interested in psychoanalysis and cinema, I felt certain that I would find much in this film to enjoy; however, the film's knowledge of film theory - the psychoanalytic in particular - runs the risk of reducing the film itself to nothing more than an exposition of the kinds of psychoanalytic readings applied to countless horror films that take teen transformation and body anxiety as their subject matter. The film, for me at least, is strangely unaffecting, operating as something of an academic exercise - an undergraduate student film essay that has Carol Clover's Men, Women and Chainsaws clearly flagged in its bibliography. Weixler's performance, however, is undeniably impressive and it does capture the affect and the inherent comedy of her inner 'dentata' rather well - there are some great lines in the film, delivered with perfect pitch and timing. Ultimately, though, I had hoped for more from the film than was actually delivered...

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