#137 -- "A" Challenge: Angst (2003)

Director: Wolfgang Bueld
Rating: 4/5

Also known as "Penetration Angst," this is definitely an interesting movie. Like Teeth, it focuses on a "disease" called Vagina Dentata. This is a mythological problem in which a vagina has teeth. While in Teeth the vagina was used as a revenge method to bite off willies, Angst takes it in a different direction. Instead of just biting off the manhood, Helen's lady parts devour the entire man, leaving behind nothing but his clothes. This is the result of a childhood trauma she faced involving her creep of a stepfather and bitch of a mother. This isn't fully realized until her boyfriend, Jack, tricks her into a horrible situation and rapes her. When he is finished, Helen realizes that Jack has disappeared. She returns home to find that her vagina can talk. It has a creepy far-away kind of voice and all it says is, "Feed me!" Fearing that something is horribly wrong, she visits with her doctor. Also like Teeth (I can't help but compare the two, since the subject matter is so similar), her doctor is a creep as well and decides to have his way with her. He, of course, does not make it out of the examination room alive. When she returns home, her vagina is still quite hungry, so she tries to feed it some hotdogs. She is interrupted by her creep stepfather (who is now in a wheelchair thanks to a young Helen) who makes advances at her. She whacks him over the head with a frying pan and goes on the run. There is only one person in her life that actually cares about her, and that is Dennis. Dennis is in love with Helen, but she never gave him a second thought. Seven months later, we see that Helen has turned to prostitution. She lures horny men into her apartment to feed her body's other-wordly cravings. Dennis is traveling through England to try to find her, and he ends up in some tricky situations himself.

While Helen is trying to satisfy her hungry vagina, Dennis is falling in love with one half of a set of Siamese twins. One twin, Silvia (who Dennis falls in love with) is a sweet bookworm. The other, Sonya, is kind of a bitch. Sonya ruins their attempts at love-making, and Dennis decides the only way to remedy the situation is by separating them. He figures the best way to do this is with an electric kitchen knife. However, everything goes wrong and he accidentally kills Sonya. Things were bad before this because he also accidentally had sex with Sonya (watch the movie to see how that happened). But, since he's now a murderer, Dennis has to go on the run. He meets up with a stripper and they decide to rob a bank. They go on the run on some island, until they meet up with Helen and her new husband. Helen and John are on their honeymoon in an RV, and John is very frustrated that Helen refuses to sleep with him (little did he know it was for his own good). He turns out to be a creep too, but he and the psycho stripper end up blowing up inside that RV. Anyways, Dennis and Stripper hijack the RV, and tie up the honeymooners. It takes Dennis quite a while to realize that he's taken his one true love hostage. Once he does, though, all is well. Well, almost. Not only is there the issue of the killer vagina, but Dennis is also on the run from the police. Stripper wants to kill them for ruining her plans to get rich, and Silvia is also seeking revenge for the murder of her sister. But a little digging and a trip down memory lane (to the childhood trauma that started the dentata), Helen might be able to overcome her obstacles and save them both, so that they can finally be together.

This was kind of like a drama/horror/comedy, which I liked. I liked the way it took something I had become familiar with and twisted it up. Of course, this movie was released before Teeth, but the latter is what introduced me to Vagina Dentata. I liked the relationship between Dennis and Helen: the hopelessly in love man, and the woman who is afraid to get close to him. The little stories in between were also fun. The Siamese twins, the crazy stripper--it was all just so out there, but it worked for me. This was definitely interesting, and I enjoyed it. I think my favorite part was the fact that Helen's vagina demanded, vocally, to be fed. It reminded me so much of Little Shop of Horrors and Audrey 2 demanding blood from Seymour. The ending was kind of abrupt and wasn't very well thought out. It was one of those, "Oh, well, everything's fine all of a sudden with no real solution" type of things. It ended on a bad note for me, but it wasn't bad enough to ruin the whole movie. So check this out if you're interested in toothed vaginas and weird stuff like that.