Teeth (2007)
"Every rose has its thorns."
Rated R / Color / 94 Minutes
Review written by "Holly Hobgoblin."

WARNING: THIS CAPSULE REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Teeth deals with “vagina dentata” which is apparently a concept that has been around for a long time. A quick check on Wikipedia will teach you that the toothed vagina is featured in the folklore of several cultures. In the Celtic mythology the creature is called “Sheela naGig”, or as I like to call her “Sheena Easton.” Heck, even Sigmund Freud, noted psychoanalyst and major perv, used the myth of vagina dentata as part of his work.

The dangers of inflatable wading pools, graphically portrayed!

The movie is set in an average town with two average nuclear reactors. (WTF?!) The camera focuses in on an average looking house with an average looking yard, where a man and woman are parked on fold-out lawn chairs and drinking beer. (The man happens to be Lenny Von Dohlen, a perfectly good character actor who has always scared the bejeebies out of me.)

Elsewhere in the picture-perfect yard, there are two tiny children sitting in an inflatable pool. The boy is splashing the girl, when the dad tells him, “Stop splashing your sister!” The boy replies, “She ain't my sister!” Later on we will be somewhat comforted to know that.

The dad drinks some more beer and he and the woman gaze lovingly/drunkenly at each other. While they are getting sloshed, the little boy exposes himself and says to the girl “Let's see yours now.” The girl complies and we next hear a scream. The parents rouse themselves and stumble to the children, and they discover that the little boy has a nasty wound on his finger. (Gee, how did he get that? wink, wink)

Insert "Jonas Brothers lost a member" joke here.

The next time we see the little girl she is a teenager acting as the main speaker at some purity rally/dance. She is discussing saving virginity to give as a gift to your spouse (I’d love to see the return policy on that gift), and the audience is cheering. Suddenly she spots a guy named Tobey, who resembles a Jonas brother, and becomes discombobulated.

After her speech she is introduced to "faux Jonas," who happens to be into saving his "gift" too. We learn Miss Teen Purity is named Dawn, and we get the feeling that faux Jonas is a bit too pure to be believed.

Dawn still lives at home and has a lovely view of those "harmless" nuclear reactors. Her mom is very sick, her step-dad is Lenny Von Dohlen, and her step-brother is the freaky son from "Nip/Tuck." While Dawn is every parent’s dream, her (step) brother Brad is a pot-smoking, sex-having, heavymetal-loving teenager. (And not in a good way.) Brad is also just a little too quick to point out that Dawn is not his biological sister. Maybe this is why Dawn’s pajamas look like they might have been featured in Little House on the Prairie.

Dawn's reaction when she discovers that "vagina dentata" is not the name of a Police tribute album.

Dawn is an object of ridicule for the “cool” kids at school although one of them, Ryan, a sort of a goofy sidekick type, lusts after her. Luckily she has a best friend who appears to be about twelve years old, and has a boyfriend who is also into purity, but wants to do rebellious stuff like kiss and see an R-rated movie! (How shocking!) Handily Tobey and the rebellious boyfriend are great buddies, so the foursome goes on an outing to an area filled with trees and caves that resemble vaginas.

Tobey admits that he is not technically a virgin (known in the grown-up world as NOT A VIRGIN), which causes Dawn to fantasize about marrying the faux Jonas Brother and letting him kiss her leg (EWW!), as she lies in bed. As Dawn is about to engage in some "self-abuse," she suddenly envisions the jaws of a slobbering b-movie monster! (I wonder why. wink wink) [Vault Master: Quick F.Y.I. here. Said slobbering beastie is a giant scorpion from the 1957 classic The Black Scorpion!) The next day at school Dawn and her boyfriend decide that they are too attracted to continue dating.

When Dawn returns home she hears Brad and his girlfriend fighting about sex (and by the way, Brad does not like to get anywhere near vaginas), and later on, Dawn goes to Brad’s room in an attempt to convert him. He abruptly ends that conversation by telling Dawn that he knows she is saving herself for him and he is tired of waiting! (Icky, icky!) Dawn runs out, and in her panic calls Tobey, and has him meet her at the vagina forest, where they go for a swim. Tobey gets a little too touchy-feely, so Dawn swims into the nearby cave.

Ironically, this gynecologist would end up becoming a world-renowned dentist.

Eventually the two teens end up cuddling in a sleeping bag that is lying there, (body lice anyone?) until Tobey decides to get "rapey." Screaming “I haven’t jerked off since Easter” (thanks for sharing Tobey) he slams Dawn's head on the ground and begins to rape her. Moments later, Tobey (the lost Jonas Brother) takes an abrupt swim after losing a very special part of himself.

The next day Dawn is set to give another speech for purity, but considering she has been date-raped, her heart just is not in it and she breaks down confessing that she is impure. The purity cult continues with their "awesome" dance party and basically shuns her, but luckily Ryan, the goofy sidekick guy arrives and drives her home.

Dawn later returns to the cave and discovers Tobey's lost manhood being mauled by a crab. (Not a lovely image.) She abandons her vow of purity and heads back home to research genitalia on the web. After finding information on vagina dentata, she heads to the local sadist/OBGYN to get a checkup. He begins to examine her with no assistant in the room (for you guys out there this is a big no no), and then uses an ungloved hand to do something very nasty. As a result, he ends up taking an impromptu time out in the fetal position, minus some fingers.

The horrifying result of taking too much Viagra!

Dawn races home on her bicycle and finds her mother unconscious on the floor. After mom goes to the hospital, Dawn ends up at Ryan's house where she tells him her dark secret, so he decides that he will have sex with her to calm her down. At first, Ryan appears to be a decent guy and after having sex Dawn becomes a self-confident vixen. However, the happy ending is cut short when Ryan reveals that he bet his buddies that he could take Dawn's virginity. Ryan then loses something important after this admission.

Afterwards, Dawn heads to the hospital then learns that her mom has died, while in the meantime, her step-dad returns home and attempts to throw Brad out of the house for being a creepy little punk. But Brad lives up to his reputation as a psychopath and sics his Rottweiler on his dad.

Eventually, Dawn meets up with Brad’s girlfriend, who reveals that she and Brad heard the mom’s cries for help but did nothing because Brad was too busy "knocking at her backdoor." Dawn finally has come to terms with her “curse” and uses it to extract a fitting revenge on Brad.

Brad loses his Snausage to his pet Rottweiler.

I was initially very wary of this movie. I feared that it would either depict the main character as an evil bitch or it would be totally outlandish. I was pleasantly surprised by the film. “Teeth” carries traces of several genres, mainly the rape-revenge movie and the atomic monster film, but it also has an excellent black comedy element. The subject matter is dealt with very subtly; there is no female frontal nudity and no shots of the actual vaginal teeth. There is a little gore which may be uncomfortable for men to watch, but it is not excessive.

This movie also uses nudity to help illustrate a particular sexual dynamic. There is really only one female nude scene in the entire film, but the male characters are shown nude fairly frequently (mostly from behind) and I think this helps convey how vulnerable the male characters in the movie are. I would probably not watch this movie repeatedly, but it is worth a look, so I think I'll give it...


- THREE 'RADS' -

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