Earlier movies like the little seen PENETRATION ANGST have crossed this path before, and the horror genre certainly has no shortage of horrific vaginal imagery, but writer-director Mitchell Lichtenstein’s TEETH is likely to stand as the ultimate “vagina dentata” film. It’s a film guaranteed to provoke a strong audience reaction wherever its shown due to its graphic scenes of male castration. Some of these scenes are accompanied by gallows humor (“hardly seems worth it…” huffs one surgeon as his team re-attaches a severed member) – and some of them segue into broad sight gags, including a Rottweiler scoffing a freshly bitten-off dick but swiftly regurgitating it because it’s pierced.
TEETH is an assured and original black comedy that deftly deals with serious themes. It’s a film about how men just want to get laid, how women have more complex emotions (and fears) about losing their virginity, and how everyone is brought up within society to, in some degree or another, fear or be repulsed by the vagina itself. In the most obvious representation of the latter, a sex education teacher can’t bring himself to say the word “vagina” and sticks foil over offending textbook diagrams of female genitalia to the bemusement of his students.
This movie skillfully veers from gruesome violence to outright comedy to sincere emotional drama within a larger framework satirizing society’s repressive attitudes to sex and sexuality. In the process, it also creates a unique and fascinating new female “monster” of sorts, while making witty, appropriate use of melodramatic, generic horror movie music (by Robert Miller). Scenes from vintage, bonafide monster movies THE BLACK SCORPION and THE GORGON neatly parallel the heroine’s discovery of her own “monstrous” anomaly, and add to the array of phallic and vaginal imagery seen throughout.
The lead role is a complex one and takes a brave young actress to pull it off. Jess Weixler does so remarkably : her performance grounds the movie by never lapsing into caricature and perceptively conveying the genuine feelings and emotions of a mixed-up teenage girl coming to terms with her sexuality. All of her fears and insecurities are credible and authentic – she just happens to have a physical abnormality (vaginal teeth) that reflect those insecurities and fears.
A virginal, good Christian teenager committed to preaching about how important it is for girls and guys to hang on to their precious “gift” until the right person comes along, the pretty Weixler nonetheless has lots of guys in town who would love to relieve her of her cherry. One of them is perverse Goth step-brother John Hensley, whom she “bit” in an unconventional fashion in a pool as a child. As she begins to experiment with her sexuality, Weixler discovers that her abnormality kicks in whenever a guy uses her sexually or molests her against her will. She learns to control it for her own ends.
At its core, TEETH is a downbeat rites of passage movie in which all the men the vulnerable heroine encounters deserve the nasty fate she prescribes for them : horny date rapists, horny peer-pressured boys involved in crude bets with pals, sleazy gynecologists relishing their job a little too much, even a full blown dirty old man in the sardonic closing scene. These exaggerations fit the movie’s off-kilter tone while nicely conveying the scared perspective of an impressionable pretty girl in a world of men eager to take advantage. Weixler’s work keeps the movie from ever feeling one note or purely cynical despite its many flippant laughs.
TEETH is notably gruesome as cocks are bloodily torn off and fingers severed, and will cause no small amount of discomfort for male viewers with a deep down fear of finding out the hard way that their sexy new girlfriend has a certain unique “condition”. It’s the date movie of the year.
The Teeth DVD includes feature commentary with director/writer Mitchell Lichtenstein, Deleted scenes with optional director commentary, behinds the scenes footage, and much more…
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
