Teeth (2008)
Directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein
Dawn is an active member of her high-school chastity club but, when she meets Tobey, nature takes its course, and the pair answer the call. They suddenly learn she is a living example of the vagina dentata myth, when the encounter takes a grisly turn.
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13 films that influenced Teeth
What critics say influenced Teeth
Bonus: Lichtenstein got his start as an actor, with roles in films by Ang Lee (“The Wedding Banquet”) and Robert Altman (“Streamers”) and even an episode of “Cheers.”
It’s Lichtenstein’s first feature, but he’s no stranger to the film world, having played the gay love interest Simon in Ang Lee’s charming 1993 romantic comedy The Wedding Banquet, as well as gay soldier Richie in the 1983 drama Streamers.
He acted for a while too, starring in Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet.
This crazy concept is nothing new; it's been a feminine fable for generations and not too long ago there was even another indie of this ilk, Penetration Angst, starring Fiona Horsey as the beleaguered babe.
Dawn's dimpled, wholesome, all-American exterior conceals the lurking erotic fear and body-loathing within to an extent that would make Shivers-era David Cronenberg proud.
Because Teeth is also a horror movie, the root of her fear is physical, not psychological -- as Anne Carlisle put it in the druggy downtown classic Liquid Sky, "this pussy has teeth."
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The camp sensibility, however, is fully self-aware, not unlike certain Todd Haynes' movies: the Barbie-doll biopic "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," or the black-and-white venereal horror/sci-fi segment of "Poison."
The camp sensibility, however, is fully self-aware, not unlike certain Todd Haynes' movies: the Barbie-doll biopic "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," or the black-and-white venereal horror/sci-fi segment of "Poison."
The end result has wit approximate to Todd Solondz's "Welcome to the Dollhouse," plus the cheap special effects and gratuitous, sexually charged carnage of a "Toxic Avenger" film.
While " Carrie " is the obvious influence (with genital transmogrification instead of telekinesis, and the other sex doing the bulk of the bleeding), "Teeth" could be seen as a "Reefer Madness" for the New Chastity Generation.
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Similar to Lucky McKee's May, but not as dour in its approach, the story focuses firmly on its idiosyncratic but likable heroine.
In his debut feature, writer-director Lichtenstein tries too much to cover various genres: the comic-horror style of Little Shop of Horrors and Scream; the social satire of The Stepford Wives, in which an assortment of fellows think women are good for only one thing aside from cooking; the straight-out sci-fi horror popular in the ’50s; and a political spoof of abstinence clubs.