Review: Teeth

Though good for a few laughs, the one-note Teeth is just another trite rape-revenge fantasy.

Teeth
Photo: Roadside Attractions

For part of its running time, Teeth suggests a live-action version of The Simpsons. In the opening shot, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s camera descends on a quaint one-family home, and in the background the towers of a nuclear power plant pump exhaust into the clear blue sky. But don’t expect to see any three-eyed goldfish lurking inside the town lake. To trace the effects of this nuclear fallout, we must delve deeper, into an abyss many dicks and sloppy tongues have probed, though mostly with great trepidation and eyes averted. Poor Dawn (Jess Weixler), a Carrie-aged goody-two-shoes who is not only saving herself for marriage but hasn’t so much as squatted over a mirror to marvel at the immaculate folds of the rose between her legs. Enter Tobey (John Hensley), a cutie who challenges her vow of chastity, forcing himself on her during a moment of horned-up weakness, oblivious that Dawn has the power to chop off wieners with her vagina. The set is staged for an awesome feminist discourse, but in literalizing the myth of vagina dentata, Lichtenstein trivializes it. Though good for a few laughs, the one-note Teeth is just another trite rape-revenge fantasy, the promise of its fierce premise unfulfilled because Lichtenstein fails to adequately account for Dawn’s pleasure as she goes on her dick-chopping rampage. Out of sight to the film’s camera, her vag also stays largely out of mind—the ultimate cop-out for a film that tries to score easy laughs from a pierced cock being devoured by a rottweiler.

Score: 
 Cast: Jess Weixler, John Hensley, Josh Pais, Hale Appleman, Ashley Springer, Vivienne Benesch, Lenny Von Dohlen, Nicole Swahn, Julia Garro, Adam Wagner  Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein  Screenwriter: Mitchell Lichtenstein  Distributor: Roadside Attractions  Running Time: 88 min  Rating: R  Year: 2007  Buy: Video

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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