Teeth (2007)

When I first heard of Teeth (Mitchell Lichtenstein, 2007), a film about a man-eating vagina, I was instantly sold. With a premise that could have resulted in a early-Cronenberg-esque film or a fun cheesy b-movie I had high expectations. Unfortunately, except for a couple of scenes, I couldn't have been more disappointed.


What The Hell Is It About?
Two words; Vagina Dentata. No it's not some sort of exotic salsa but something with a bit more bite. Dawn (Jess Weixler), a celebrate young woman with a slight teething problem realises that her womanly region is becoming, how shall I put it...hungry for cock.



What Is Any Good?
In my opinion, no.  With such a great and rather innovative idea for a modern horror film, I feel as though this film could have been something special and maybe even legendary among the genre, but in actuality it turned out to be rather slow and cliched. The characters are about as stereotypical as the Mr. Men books with Dawn a typical goodie-two-shoes turned slut as she develops into womanhood, and Brad (John Hensley) her 'brother' who is nothing more than a cardboard cut out of a porn-loving, drug-smoking, horror-watching, metalhead. But if you consider the rather bad acting then perhaps this was the whole point. The film is, after all, very tongue in cheek.  One of the best scenes in the entire film, the doctor's (Josh Pais) scene  is played completely for laughs

The gore was very infrequent but when it did finally happen the audience is rewarded with  leg-crossing, stomach turning scenes. The special effects/make up during these moments are excellent, as seen in the picture. However, there just wasn't enough knob-biting for my liking (so to speak) to make this film anything but a curiosity or at best a mediocre film.

Reading up on this film however it seems that a lot of people (male and female) were offended by the representation of men and indeed women. Though whilst it is certainly easy to argue that all the male characters are shown to be sex-mad and violent and analysing this film from a feminist angle would be interesting, I personally don't really care about gender representations so much as to stop my enjoyment of a film. Oh no, the biggest problem for me was the lack of violence and the frustrating stupidity and hypocrisy in the plot - most notably sleeping with Ryan.

But I seem to be in minority here as it's gained quite a big fan base. So, if you're looking for a tongue-in-cheek (though not particularly LOL) but not too much gore, then give this one a go. If not, I'd say skip it and watch Cronenberg's Shivers or Rabid instead for some true body-horror goodness.

I'd give it a 1.5/5