Well, here we go, with another one of those “How do I write about this?” sort of movies. The film in question is “Teeth,” and if you are eating your breakfast, you might want to skip to something more soothing right now, like a review of “Rambo.”
“Teeth” is a horror movie, sometimes facetious, sometimes straight, that uses the enduring myth of “vagina dentata” for its plot. Its central character is Dawn (Jess Weixler), an apparently ordinary teen in an apparently ordinary town.
Well, the town is ordinary except for those two large atomic-plant smokestacks looming in the near distance. That might just have something to do with the evolutionary mutation that seems to have affected Dawn.
When Dawn, trusting a boy who is a member of her abstinence group at school, suddenly finds herself being raped by the guy, she also discovers her mutation: vagina dentata, a vagina with teeth.
Writer-director Mitchell Lichtenstein leaves us in no doubt about the consequences of the rapist’s assault, with explicit shots of the resulting gore.
This tactic reaches its apotheosis in a sequence involving another of Dawn’s unwelcome sexual partners. By now she’s aware of the dangerous potential of her sexuality, and turns it against predatory creeps. This loathsome fellow finds his (how shall we say this?) “membership revoked” (sorry) at the same time his dog enters the room.
At times this bloody movie, apparently born from a deep sense of castration anxiety, really knows what it’s doing. There’s a hint of Brian De Palma’s early horror films, especially “Carrie,” and some of the horror-comedy mixing of Stuart Gordon (“Re-animator”).
But the tone of “Teeth” is difficult to track — at times it’s an effective little revenge movie, at times a broad black comedy. Had it been played completely straight, I can see how this premise, however outlandish, might have created a stir, especially given the terrific performance by Jess Weixler in the lead role.
It’s still destined for cult fame, and will surely be fodder for countless academic papers. Too bad it’s mostly a joke here.
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