Here’s a delectable “B” exploitation double feature for you: Trapped Ashes and Teeth. Both feature female erogenous zones that hunger for human blood. That’s right! Even now, in a porn riddled world, sex is still terrifying! And the most terrifying parts of sex are breasts and the vagina! No, really! Gross and horrifying! Ewwwwww! Vagina!
First up, we’ve got Trapped Ashes, a horror anthology (in the grand tradition of Tales From The Crypt, and by “grand tradition” I mean “completely shameless rip-off with the addition of tons of gratuitous female nudity”) directed by eighties schlock masters Joe Dante, Sean S. Cunningham, and Ken Russell along with a couple of other dudes I have never heard of. The cinematography and art direction is highly stylized, either in homage to anthologies from the past, or to cover up the fact that they spent most of their budget on naked boobs. I found each of the five stories (at least, five if you include the wraparound) to be a guilty pleasure of the highest order, but by far my fave was the story in which a struggling actress gets a boob job which turns her career around–but the implants are demonic, and her nipples have toothy little mouths that bite and suck the blood out of her lovers. The effects are to-die-for hysterical. The entire production is clearly tongue-in-cheek, a horror-comedy version of the more earnest versions from the old days. And if biting boobs and lots of sex aren’t enough for ya, there are also appearances by some genre veterans that I hadn’t seen in too long: Henry Gibson, Dick Miller, and most importantly, John Saxon. Damn, it was good to see those guys. And boobs.
Now we move from the female chest to much darker and more uncharted territory: the vagina. There is some nonsense myth called “vagina dentata” that serves as the inspiration for Teeth. Unlike the goofy qualities of Trapped Ashes, this one plays its satire with a bit more subtlety. That may not sound right for a movie about a girl who has a toothed vagina, and at first I wasn’t too sure myself, but the movie grew on me as it clipped along. It has a couple of absolutely disgusting moments that’ll make you cringe and then bust a gut, and in particular there is a sequence with a creepy gynocologist who gets his just desserts that made me fall out of my chair. Teeth is no where near as exploitative as Trapped Ashes, but it has a deeper satirical core, although I didn’t give it too much thought because I was having too good a time giggling about vaginas with teeth.
Killer boobs. Killer honey pods.
Check it one time, won’t you?
XXOO, Todd
Actually watched bits of Teeth earlier.
That poor guy. That lucky dog.
Also, the next step here is obviously a vampiric vagina. You have alliteration, you have the goofiness combined with potential creepiness. I call it… Fangina. Pronounce it how you will.
Of course, you could combine Bite-y Parts with the classic oldschool giant monster movies and have Them 2: Them’s Got Teeth or… you know, maybe I shouldn’t think when I’m tired.
Jesus, I hadn’t kept up with what Ken Russell’s been up to, and this review inspired me to go check out his wikipedia page. Damn, has that guy pissed it all away. Sad. He was always totally nuts, but that guy was a real artist, of sorts.