Directed by: Mitchell Lichtenstein
Starring: Jess Weixler, John Hensley, Ashley Springer
Plot:Dawn grows up in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. In high school, while her biology class studies evolution, she realizes she may have a hidden curse, an "adaptation." She lives with her mom, step-father, and hard-edged step-brother. She likes Tobey, a guy at school, and he likes her. She takes a pledge to remain chaste until marriage, so they date in groups, watch G-rated films, and don't kiss, but the power of teen hormones is great, so temptation beckons. Dawn has an admirer in Ryan, and when she breaks it off unexpectedly with Tobey, she turns to Ryan for help. Will he be her mythical hero and rescue her? Or can she find her way as her own hero, turning the curse into an asset? Taken from www.imdb.com.
"What? Generic character? I'm all kinds of original like I... I uh... um... shut up."Teeth opens in a nice little town located within stone's throwing distance of a nuclear power plant where two young children (a girl and a boy) are sitting in a kiddie pool while the boy's father and the girl's mother enjoying another's company when the boy screams, he's had the tip of his finger bitten almost entirely off.
We then shift to an abstinence seminar where the girl from the previous scene, now all grown up, gives a speech about "staying pure" and saving your gift for when you're married and all that. We're then introduced formally to Dawn as she has a conversation with her friends and character Tobey who quickly becomes the object of Dawn's affection.
There's a good deal of sexual tension between Dawn and Tobey and she tells him that they can no longer see one another for fear of temptation, of course she decides against this and the entire bloody thing begins.
"Gratuitous breasts? NOW I'm watching a run-of-the-mill horror film."
We then shift to an abstinence seminar where the girl from the previous scene, now all grown up, gives a speech about "staying pure" and saving your gift for when you're married and all that. We're then introduced formally to Dawn as she has a conversation with her friends and character Tobey who quickly becomes the object of Dawn's affection.
There's a good deal of sexual tension between Dawn and Tobey and she tells him that they can no longer see one another for fear of temptation, of course she decides against this and the entire bloody thing begins.
"Gratuitous breasts? NOW I'm watching a run-of-the-mill horror film."Womanhood has been used in horror before, be it in "Ginger Snaps"' creative use of the menstrual cycle and the changes of womanhood to be mistaken with lycanthropy to Ripley incubating a xenomorph with a womb in "Alien Ressurection" the concept of the usage of the vagina as a horror plot device is not new or groundbreaking.
However, Teeth from the beginning opens your mind and puts forth a lot of thought provoking points involving empowerment of women. From fending off rape and molestation to getting back at someone who's used them Teeth explores all of these ideas in a way that makes you think.
The acting in this movie is fair, no real stand-out performances except for Jess Weixler as Dawn who plays a role somewhere in between Angela Bettis from "May" and Emily Perkins in "Ginger Snaps." She is delightfully awkward and naive perfectly playing the part of a virginal teenage girl.
DO NOT WANT!
The rest of the chracters are pretty average though John Hensley as Brad is so 2-dimensional that you can practically see the dotted line where he was cut out of paper as the generic punk-rock, over-sexed, drug abusing, slacker step brother with the skanky girlfriend who "just doesn't know any better" a few times it seems the writer is trying to give Brad some depth but these moments are never elaborated upon.
And watch Lenny von Dohlen as Bill as he's really the only male character in this movie who's worth any sort of attention as for once a loving and supporting step father who cares for Dawn as if she was his own child, a relationship that's not seen very often in ANY movie, let alone horror.
However, Teeth from the beginning opens your mind and puts forth a lot of thought provoking points involving empowerment of women. From fending off rape and molestation to getting back at someone who's used them Teeth explores all of these ideas in a way that makes you think.
The acting in this movie is fair, no real stand-out performances except for Jess Weixler as Dawn who plays a role somewhere in between Angela Bettis from "May" and Emily Perkins in "Ginger Snaps." She is delightfully awkward and naive perfectly playing the part of a virginal teenage girl.
DO NOT WANT!The rest of the chracters are pretty average though John Hensley as Brad is so 2-dimensional that you can practically see the dotted line where he was cut out of paper as the generic punk-rock, over-sexed, drug abusing, slacker step brother with the skanky girlfriend who "just doesn't know any better" a few times it seems the writer is trying to give Brad some depth but these moments are never elaborated upon.
And watch Lenny von Dohlen as Bill as he's really the only male character in this movie who's worth any sort of attention as for once a loving and supporting step father who cares for Dawn as if she was his own child, a relationship that's not seen very often in ANY movie, let alone horror.
"Oh my God, this script is horrible past the first 30 minutes!"
Much of the more thought provoking material in this film is presented as comedy. The teen abstinence group including Dawn's two best friends who refuse to go see an R rated movie and even a PG-13 because even it will have "heavy making out." They become worried when the group goes to the local make-out place that all the teens go to even though it's mid-day and they're in a group. They can also be seen criticizing the biology teacher as she's speaking about evolution.
There's also the sex-ed class where the teacher refuses to say the word "vagina" and the diagram in the book of the female reproductive organs has been covered with a giant sticker as it has been deemed "inappropriate."
The biology teacher speaks about rattlesnakes and how they adapted a rattle on their tail for them not to be stepped on and then goes on to say that's it's not known whether this adapted over hundreds of years or was just a genetic analogy (Questionable movie science, EXCELLENT!) this of course is just a further explanation of why Dawn is the way she is, though I think the nuclear power plant at the beginning gave us all the information we needed.
A look you never want to see on a woman's face if you're in a horror film.
There's also the sex-ed class where the teacher refuses to say the word "vagina" and the diagram in the book of the female reproductive organs has been covered with a giant sticker as it has been deemed "inappropriate."
The biology teacher speaks about rattlesnakes and how they adapted a rattle on their tail for them not to be stepped on and then goes on to say that's it's not known whether this adapted over hundreds of years or was just a genetic analogy (Questionable movie science, EXCELLENT!) this of course is just a further explanation of why Dawn is the way she is, though I think the nuclear power plant at the beginning gave us all the information we needed.
A look you never want to see on a woman's face if you're in a horror film.Effects-wise, Teeth is done very well. When Brad's finger is bitten off it looks like he had it bitten off and when that scene comes, and don't play coy with me you know exactly what scene I'm referring to whether you saw the movie or not, it's convincing. Between the sickening crunch and the unobscured view of a male crotch spurting blood it sits with you.
This gag gets tired after a while though, it's used on 3 separate occasions and one accomplishment I did not want to have in my life was becoming desensitized to the severing of a penis in a movie. It goes from "OH MY GOD THEY SHOWED IT!" to "Okay now this is just getting ridiculous" rather quickly.
It should also be noted that I have no clue how this movie could have possibly gotten an r rating from that cult of nazi-like raters known as the MPAA. I am not proud of having seen that many severed penises and being an avid fan of horror movies that push the envelope I've seen more than I care to already.
Oh look, even the actress is getting tired of all the tired stereotypes.
This gag gets tired after a while though, it's used on 3 separate occasions and one accomplishment I did not want to have in my life was becoming desensitized to the severing of a penis in a movie. It goes from "OH MY GOD THEY SHOWED IT!" to "Okay now this is just getting ridiculous" rather quickly.
It should also be noted that I have no clue how this movie could have possibly gotten an r rating from that cult of nazi-like raters known as the MPAA. I am not proud of having seen that many severed penises and being an avid fan of horror movies that push the envelope I've seen more than I care to already.
Oh look, even the actress is getting tired of all the tired stereotypes.However, Teeth is it's own worst enemy. Mitchell Lichtenstein tries really hard to be Lucky McKee, he really does. And he falls flat on his face doing it. While Teeth starts out as a thought-provoking horror comedy about female empowerment and female sexuality it turns into the kind of film that would be played in the 70s in a theater that smells like feet and the floors are sticky for reasons you just don't want to know.
Spoilers abound beyond this point, skip down past the next picture if you don't want the film ruined for you.
About 40 minutes in Teeth loses its drive and then the plot follows with it. What was once about empowerment quickly just becomes annoying, Bill the stepfather is the only male character in this movie that isn't a complete asshole. Okay the love interest I can buy becoming a sex crazed rapist, and the step brother is a given, but the second love interest who we're introduced to as a socially awkward generally nice guy becoming a complete jerk was a bit much, and the gynecologist with a penchant for fisting was just a bit too far, and I called the old man before that even happened, I was expecting the the stepfather to take a shot at Dawn before the movie was over the way things were going.
Unfortunately in its rush to empower women, Teeth manages to successfully degrade men in a script that can only be described as the paranoid delusions of any man with a teenage daughter. But even that's lost as Dawn seems to lose her drive to turn herself in for killing someone and uses her ability for revenge which just ends up exploiting women more succesfully than any slasher movie ever could by taking sweet innocent (albeit naive) Dawn and turning her into a vengeful bitch. The movie loses all it's power, all it's message, and all it's point.
"Okay now pull her lips apart so you can see her teeth. Let's make this metaphor as blatantly obvious as possible"
Spoilers abound beyond this point, skip down past the next picture if you don't want the film ruined for you.
About 40 minutes in Teeth loses its drive and then the plot follows with it. What was once about empowerment quickly just becomes annoying, Bill the stepfather is the only male character in this movie that isn't a complete asshole. Okay the love interest I can buy becoming a sex crazed rapist, and the step brother is a given, but the second love interest who we're introduced to as a socially awkward generally nice guy becoming a complete jerk was a bit much, and the gynecologist with a penchant for fisting was just a bit too far, and I called the old man before that even happened, I was expecting the the stepfather to take a shot at Dawn before the movie was over the way things were going.
Unfortunately in its rush to empower women, Teeth manages to successfully degrade men in a script that can only be described as the paranoid delusions of any man with a teenage daughter. But even that's lost as Dawn seems to lose her drive to turn herself in for killing someone and uses her ability for revenge which just ends up exploiting women more succesfully than any slasher movie ever could by taking sweet innocent (albeit naive) Dawn and turning her into a vengeful bitch. The movie loses all it's power, all it's message, and all it's point.
"Okay now pull her lips apart so you can see her teeth. Let's make this metaphor as blatantly obvious as possible"Ultimately Teeth is a 70s exploitation film ala "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers" pretending to be an intelligent thought provoking horror movie. It's schizophrenic and lacking in plot.
I give Teeth a 2 out of 5, don't bother with it.
I give Teeth a 2 out of 5, don't bother with it.
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