Just when you thought it was safe to go back inside her pants…
Seriously, though, there are a number of similarities between Jaws and the movie I am reviewing today, Teeth. The movie titles are nearly identical, the featured sharp-toothed beasts are rarely shown on screen, and both movies attempt to scare teenagers from doing things that they find fun. But instead of scaring girls from skinny-dipping in the ocean in the middle of the night, Teeth has the nobler intention of scaring horny teenage boys from taking advantage of girls.
It is effortless to pass this film off as an exploitation horror flick. I mean, my God, it is about a teenage girl who chomps off guys’ penises with her ravenous mutant vagina! But if you could look past the film’s shock gimmick and go deeper into its plot elements and subtexts, you would find a clever story that makes a rather poignant case on a topical issue. This movie definitely has something to say, though it is debatable whether it says it in the most elegant way it could.
Teeth is about a young girl named Dawn O’Keefe, played by Jess Weixler. Dawn is the spokesperson for a Christian abstinence group who talks to young people about purity rings and “saving it until marriage”. Unfortunately, she just so happens to live in Rapeville, USA, where every man in the town, including classmates and gynecologists, tries to take advantage of her sexually, in one way or another. Through a couple of encounters, she (rather gruesomely) discovers that she has “vagina dentata”, a mythical condition that, shall we say, “gives her kitty some bite”. Although she is initially frightened by her newfound uniqueness, she eventually uses it to her advantage as she takes revenge on those who have wronged her.
Teeth turns the tables on the typical role of female characters in horror movies. In most of these types of films, the female characters always play the victim, and they are either sexually assaulted by the male killer or otherwise punished by him for their promiscuity. In this movie, the innocent-looking girl IS the deadly killer. But she doesn’t necessarily hunt her victims; her victims come to her with their sick, sexual intentions and they certainly do deserve what’s waiting to them. That is why I find it hard to call Teeth a horror movie. I believe that it has more in common with the female revenge exploitation movies like I Spit On Your Grave or the much more recent Kill Bill movies.
It is also hard to call this movie a comedy, as it is so often listed. True, there is plenty of humor in this film, but it’s not like the director and writer, Mitchell Lichtenstein, went out of his way to make this movie hilarious. It’s not like the Evil Dead sequels or the Scary Movie series, where yuks are thrown in all over the place. The main source of comedy in Teeth comes from its ridiculous concept and the few bits of satire in the plot. Otherwise, the film actually takes itself quite seriously.
You know, when I took a film analysis course in college, one of my classmates’ favorite running jokes is how much of the literature about film is on how the female characters want to castrate their male companions so that they can achieve some higher level of empowerment. In Teeth, the concept is taken literally. Dawn is actually removing penises from their respective proud owners, and in the meantime, is enjoying a new sense of empowerment and control that she had never felt before. To me, this is a refreshing change of pace in a genre full of misogynistic scenes and obligatory female knife-fodder. It also ties in very nicely with the film’s whole story, which makes a much stronger argument against abstinence than most female-oriented drivel, such as the Twilight series, make for it.
Follow me on this: Here we have Dawn, a teenage girl who has always praised and endorsed abstinence. She even travels to different schools and promotes the purity ring, a symbol that lets others know that she refuses to have sex before marriage. She then meets Toby, a well-meaning, soft-spoken young man who is also restraining himself from the urge of premarital sex. After a while of hanging out, they both admit an attraction to one another. This scares Dawn, as she fears that this attraction could make her accidentally give up her treasured virginity. So she proposes that Toby and herself should stop seeing each other, which they agree upon.
After a while, though, they both give in and decide to see each other again at the swimming hole, one of their hangout places from before. As the date goes on, their passions escalate, as they go from playfully swimming together to making out in a nearby cave. Toby then suggests the idea of sex. This, of course, makes Dawn apprehensive, and she begins to push Toby away. Toby, who is already caught up in the moment, refuses to take “no” for an answer and begins raping her. Fortunately, she discovers her natural self-defense mechanism just in time, and Toby is left in the swimming hole severely wounded.
Dawn is horrified by what happened at the swimming hole, both Toby’s actions and her own. But she actually sees Toby, not herself, as the victim in this situation. Through her fear of sex and her personal ideals that she presses on other people, she turned this innocent young man into a violent sexual predator, who later turns up dead due to his injuries from the incident. She begins to see a mortal flaw with the concept of abstinence. Worse yet, she sees that the “abstinence only” message that she has been preaching to young girls is actually propaganda, which reinforces her own ideological beliefs and discourages any alternatives or second thoughts on the subject. After realizing this, she drops her purity ring off of a cliff as a symbolic gesture for her renouncement of abstinence. No more will she live in fear of the sexual desires of others. No more will she let her apprehensions control her life and her relationships. She is now going to make smart choices on her own sexuality.
Dawn then loses her virginity to another classmate of hers. Even though she has just discovered her sexuality, this does not make her a whore. In fact, her “gift” defends her from those who try to take advantage of her. With a clamp from her second set of teeth, she delivers swift justice to those who push sex onto her or trivialize her sexuality. From here on out, she is protected to let go of her natural urges and empowered by her new decisions.
Embracing your own sexual identity is the main theme in Teeth’s story, and it certainly is one with good intentions. I’m just not too sure on the execution, however. For one, obviously not every woman has a set of razor-sharp teeth surrounding her vajayjay, so how else could they possibly be protected from someone who wants to sexually assault them? I mean, rape could possibly happen whether you are sexually active or not. Secondly, biting off a large chunk of a man’s penis seems like an excessive retaliation that I, as a male, am uncomfortable with, even if it is meant to be metaphorical. Finally, if this message is supposed to be directed towards young impressionable girls, then it is told through a story that they will surely not find appealing, making the whole message rather pointless.
Still, this is not a bad film at all. Teeth is just your average cheesy gorefest that transcends its genre by offering clever satire and ignoring the traditional female-victim prerogative. It’s not the most elaborately constructed horror movie, but it gets the job done. I would recommend it to those who crave good old horror flick fun and want to avoid the torture porn that currently occupies much of the horror genre. I believe you will be pleasantly surprised by how deeply this film will make you think about sexuality and the portrayal of women in horror movies.
Now if you excuse me, I need to continue convincing myself that vagina dentata doesn’t exist…
Rating: 3 Stars
Distributed by Roadside Attractions
Running time: 88 minutes
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