By Ben Bussey
Hello again, BAH readers. Given that we’ve been offline the best part of a week (another story for another time), there’s nothing I’d love more than to welcome you back with word on an upcoming new release that I know is going to blow your minds. Alas, I’ll have to disappoint you. Unless, that is, you’re one of those rare souls who feels that the main problem with the I Spit On Your Grave remake and its sequels was that they were all a little too well made and inventive, boasted characters and plot developments that were just too believable, and never really milked the comedy value out of that whole rape-revenge angle. In which case, quids in: this one’s going to be right up your alley. As for the rest of us…
Yes, Even Lambs Have Teeth is essentially a rape revenge comedy. I’m not sure if that’s what writer-director Terry Miles had intended it to be, and I get the impression that most parties involved probably thought they were making something considerably harsher, bolder and edgier than the film proves to be. Sadly, this is one of the most inept, lifeless attempts at a neo-exploitation movie that I’ve seen in this year or any other. It’s one thing to be utterly tasteless; under the right conditions, that can be a true advantage. However, a lack of taste should never go hand-in-hand with a lack of wit, and/or a lack of balls.
Sloane (Kirsten Prout) and Katie (Tiera Skovbye) are a couple of typical small town high school graduate besties with a typically girly plan for their summer: they want to go shopping in New York City. In order to save the money they need for that endeavour, they’ve signed up to work at a remote organic farm in the country for a month. After being driven out to the bus stop by Katie’s somewhat over-protective uncle Jason (Michael Karl Richards), who also happens to be a police detective – gee, wonder if that will have any bearing on things later on? – the girls meet a couple of nice-looking local boys at a coffee shop, who offer them a ride up to the farm. Though cautious Katie has her doubts, impetuous Sloane likes to carpe that diem, and so the girls accept the ride.
No prizes for guessing what happens next: the girls wind up drugged, then wake to find themselves stripped to their underwear and chained up in metal shipping containers out in the middle of nowhere. Yep, them good ol’ boys have abducted our heroines for sex slavery, and multiple rapes ensue for both of them. But when the chance for escape arises they don’t hesitate, nor do they hold back in fighting for their lives – and before you can say “They Call Her One Eye,” the prey becomes the predator.
Don’t be misled by that Thriller: A Cruel Picture reference, though. While the premise might not be too far removed, Even Lambs Have Teeth is worlds apart in terms of content. Let’s face it, the raison d’etre of any rape-revenge exploitation movie is that it must be unflinching and unapologetic in its brutality, and that simply isn’t the case here at all. I won’t deny that I’ve grown tired of rape as a horror trope in recent years, so on the one hand I don’t mind that Even Lambs Have Teeth avoids showing the heinous act itself in detail; but at the same time, films of this nature hinge on showing the protagonists suffer in the earlier scenes, in order to really fire the audience up for the revenge that follows, and Even Lambs Have Teeth completely fails to do this.
Worse yet, the revenge itself is also painfully misjudged in its tone. The violent retribution sequences are played for overt comedy value, and hold back from anything but minimal gore, the action cutting away a split-second before impact in just about every murder scene. This might have been okay if the film was otherwise shot and edited in an interesting way, but no; it’s that same old painfully bland and clean DTV aesthetic, completely devoid of the dirt and sleaze that the genre requires. I expect the main defence that would be made against this is that the film is striving to tell an interesting, character-driven story. Guess what; it fails miserably. Whether it’s the script and direction or the actors themselves, there’s not a single performance in the movie that works, every frame of it coming off utterly forced and unnatural.
Still, misguided attempts at character-based drama are one thing – but when all’s said and done, what exactly is the point of a rape-revenge movie that neither shows the rape nor the revenge? Skirting over those elements leaves the viewer asking why they even bothered making the damn thing, and just who they made it for. Yes, of course rape is an unpleasant subject matter, so it’s entirely understandable that some filmmakers and actors might feel uncomfortable taking it on. But if a cast and crew are not willing to push both their audience and themselves beyond their comfort zone, then they really have no business trying to make exploitation.
Even Lambs Have Teeth might catch some uninitiated supermarket bottom-shelf shoppers unawares (remember that debacle around The Hospital?*), but anyone with even a perfunctory knowledge of the genre will find it way too tame to be of interest; and I can’t imagine anyone else would take even a passing interest in the film. An ill-conceived, asinine waste of time in every respect, this is one lamb that should have been slaughtered at birth.
Even Lambs Have Teeth is out on region 2 DVD on 20th June, from Matchbox Films.
*Not that I’m comparing these movies to one another; say what you want about The Hospital, but it definitely didn’t shy away from the real exploitation elements.