Teeth
Movie Review
"Teeth"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: B
Rating: R
Released: Friday, January 25, 2008
Directed by:
Cast:
Monsters, demons, and ax-wielding maniacs are fine for most horror movies. But "Teeth" knows that if you really want to terrify male adolescents, you should capitalize on something they're already afraid of in real life: the vagina.
From the warped imagination of Mitchell Lichtenstein (son of legendary pop artist Roy Lichtenstein) comes "Teeth," a spoof of B-movie monster flicks, a satire of modern-day puritan ethics, and a tongue-in-cheek female-empowerment story. It's not entirely successful at all times on every count, but at least it has some interesting ideas behind it.
Our heroine is Dawn (Jess Weixler), a goody-two-shoes high-schooler who belongs to a Christian group obsessed with sex -- with not having it, specifically. They wear "promise" rings as a reminder never to do the deed until they're married, and they talk about the subject constantly.
Obviously, such obsession with not doing something can only lead to one thing: doing it. But before we get to that point, Dawn suffers a lot of confusion. The kids at school make fun of her for being a crazy virgin. Her school's sex-ed class uses textbooks in which diagrams of the female organs are censored, while the male diagrams are left alone. The teacher can barely stammer out the "V" word. Her mother is ill, leaving her with no strong female role models. Her stepfather (Lenny von Dohlen) is nice enough, but her stepbrother, Brad (John Hensley) is creepy, oversexual, and menacing.
Dawn hangs out with other chastity-minded teens, including a nice boy named Tobey (Hale Appleman). He finds it difficult to control his passions, though, and one day he and Dawn start to cross the line. She regains her resolve and tells him to stop; he doesn't stop; he forces himself on her; and the teeth in her vagina bite off his willy. Let that be a lesson to you!
From there Dawn struggles to understand her body and her sexuality. She fills the role of the B-movie scientist who is slowly undergoing a transformation: terrified of what's happening to her, trying to harness her powers, running from one horrific situation to the next.
Lichtenstein maintains a playful attitude throughout the film, filling the frames with visual puns (trees with vagina-shaped holes) and verbal ones ("There's dinner, if you want a bite," stepdad Bill says when Dawn comes home after the Tobey castration. "No thanks, I ate," she says). The film follows a classic monster-movie structure, but it's meant as a comedy, not a thriller. True to form, however, we never do see the "monster."
Jess Weixler won a special prize at Sundance for her performance as Dawn, and she deserves it. Dawn is not an easy role to play. She has to be innocent, naive, smart, frightened, and bold all at once, and Weixler has to make her seem real and believable despite the fantastical premise. Weixler, a 25-year-old actress with only a couple minor credits to her name before now, manages all of this with the aplomb of a seasoned veteran.
Some of the film's story elements don't quite come together. There's no apparent reason for the sick-mother character to even be in the film, and Bill's decision to kick Brad out of the house is ill-explained. Those are rookie mistakes, I think; Lichtenstein has his act together in almost every other regard. "Teeth" will appeal to a niche market, for sure -- randy, pop-culturally savvy 20-year-olds -- but its wit has some real bite to it.
Grade: B
Rated R, a lot of nudity, some strong sexuality, several scenes with blood and gore
1 hr., 27 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 15 comments
June 15, 2007 at 10:56 pm
What I want to know now is, does "the monster" KILL anyone, or just... you know, er, unman them? I could see this whole movie playing out to the end without a body count, *technically* speaking.
November 30, 2007 at 5:45 pm
as long as you pick the right enemies, christians, the progressive religion allows indulgences in the creepiest levels of classical misogyny.
same thing with racism. it's okay as long as there are some charicatures of redneck republicans thrown in there.
December 28, 2007 at 12:51 pm
wasen't there a 70's porn about a gal with teeth in her vagina?
January 3, 2008 at 6:44 pm
It is weird that they girl who is supposedly innocent, doesn't get sued or go to jail or something. Although the guys are obviously doing something bad which is totally wrong, she is doing things just as bad if not worse. That is just strange. But the movie seems good anyways lol.
January 4, 2008 at 8:30 am
Chadwick: I think you are referring to the movie "Chatterbox"? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075830/
In this case, the main character's "lady business" talks, sings, and tells crass jokes.
Disclaimer: I want to make it very clear--I have NOT seen this movie...
January 18, 2008 at 10:47 am
So, if someone made a movie where women's breasts were cut off, would that be hailed as an artistic success? Of course not. I'm willing to bet that all of the men in the film are bad in some way, in order to justify what she's doing. Geez... just another movie for angry and sadistic women to enjoy, and if we don't agree in every detail then we're sexists.
January 25, 2008 at 10:22 am
I can't wait to see this, it looks hilarious! It reminds me a bit of a female werewolf movie, only 100 times funnier and more original.
January 25, 2008 at 10:38 am
I saw the trailer and that was terrifying enough.
January 29, 2008 at 2:12 pm
"So, if someone made a movie where women's breasts were cut off, would that be hailed as an artistic success? Of course not."
It's a horror movie. Women are dismembered in horror movies all the time.
Nearly a 100 years of misogyny as a staple of the horror movie plot, and one movie comes out that turns the tables, and you really want to cry 'sexism?'
Sure, castration is an uncomfortable topic for men. I dig that. But you don't think women were uncomfortable with the literally thousands of movies in which they were viewed as walking targets, useful only as victims to be raped/murdered?
February 14, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I'm not sure where Hank is coming from. Women don't use their breasts to violate men. So the analogy isn't apt. Secondly, men (and women) who whine about feminists and fear being called a "sexist" need to regain some security in their belief system--if you like movies that cast women in demeaning, trite, and traditional roles then you are a sexist and you should either get comfortable with it or change. A movie about the horrors of puritanical sexual education is FUNNY, intending to demonstrate that an obsession with sex--either to have or never have it--is just as debilitating for BOTH sexes.
June 11, 2008 at 9:38 pm
N. R. Truman, find me one positive male in this movie and then tell me it's not sexist.
And by the way, woman can rape too. The analogy would be perfectly apt if the movie was about a penis that shot acid into women's vaginas. But no. It's violence against men -- horrific violence, for that matter -- so it's funny.
June 16, 2008 at 12:39 am
It seems that this is an example of how extreme violence towards men is somehow acceptable in the media, a film basically that centres around men having their penis's bitten off, i've yet to see a film where the hero of the movie tears wombs out with his barbed penis and then justifies it with sexual political rhetoric!
June 21, 2008 at 10:58 pm
emm... i hate to agree with the men and go against the woman but.... this is sick!! they are right it is very sexist towards men!! but also men do need the tables turned too cos in every horror we see there are girls who are completly weak little SWEAR WORD for brains idiots who are just walking targets. However i also must point out that horrors do also have some strong female characters!!! So really what I'm trying to say is that yes it's good to "turn the tables" but does it really have to be this extreme??? The answer is no!!
June 27, 2008 at 1:15 am
Oh, c'mon. I'm a guy and even I can appreciate the mythological parallels to the infamous vagina dentata. Sure it's violent, it's supposed to be the subsoncious horror of every male that contemplates intercourse. It's not so much sexist as it is a projection of our own fears and uncertainties. On that note, however, I believe I prefer Neal Stephenson's updated vision of vagina dentata in the form of YT's embedded hypodermic needle and a powerful barbiturate coctail ;)
October 8, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I'm not sure I understand psychological aspects of this movie at all. The girl has teeth in her vagina and uses them to destroy the lives of men that wrong her. At first it appears that she’s innocent and an unwilling participant of her power (if that’s what you want to call it) but later becomes a willing huntress of all male penis whether you believe the guys in the movie deserve what happens to them or not.
It’s basically saying that “two wrongs make a right” as long as you’re a female. But that’s the real problem here. The “wrongs” that the guys have done in this movie seem very minor for the amount of punishment she deals out to them. The first guy did try to rape her and his punishment seemed reasonable since she didn’t appear to have control on that situation. Her body just reacted to his in a defensive reflex manner. I was fine with this movie at that point. But things started turning around way too quickly thereafter and she appeared to become the bad guy herself that was getting a thrill out of destroying these men.
It’s like this movie is some form of feminist propaganda that tries to tell men that you better let them have control in the bedroom or they’ll castrate you with their teeth the next time you want a BJ.