10 Horror Movie Concepts That Should NEVER Work (But Do)
3. Teeth
It’s funny, simple as. The idea of your protagonist’s main plight in life being her vicious vagina is funny. It’s even funnier to think about being in the middle of sex and her gnashers just making an appearance and munching her partners !*$% clean off. It’s hilarious! You’d think it would make a YouTube skit, maybe a short film at best - because after you’ve seen the gag a few times it just wears off, right?
Well that’s what makes this film work: they took a concept that, on first contemplation, seems impossible to fashion into a movie because it’s just comedic, and they built it up to be more than a cheap laugh.
Whilst the concept itself is still funny on a surface level, the wider context the film gives us roots the story in a societal problem that allows for deeper meanings to permeate. Yes, we get to laugh at a doctor getting his hand stuck inside her vagina-mouth, but we also get the satisfaction of her learning to use a part of her body that she considers her weakness or her secret shame as a weapon of her own protection and agency - AKA she chops the peen off her abusive step-brother!