Film Reviews

Teeth

• Rating:
• Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein.
• Starring: Jess Weixler, John Hensley, Josh Pais, Hale Appleman.
• Details: US / 88mins (18).

Teeth is the perfect date movie; not because teen couples are likely to 'get busy' afterwards, but because worried parents of teen couples will be secure in the knowledge that there's be no hanky panky that night. Or the next night. Or the next. Not until the memory of this horror fades. Naive teenager Dawn (Weixler) lives in the shadow of a nuclear power plant with her mother, stepfather and stepbrother and has taken a vow of chastity, which is probably best as her vagina has a set of razor sharp teeth. Ah, that old vagina dentata chestnut. Dawn has a boyfriend, sort of, in Tobey (Appleman), but when he gets hot and bothered one day and discovers Dawn's secret, the date ends minus a penis. He won't be the last. Fifty-two year old Mitchell Lichtenstein, with his debut feature, taps into man's primal fear and delivers something that's been missing from horror in the last few years: a psychology, and it's a psychology that's hard to miss as Lichtenstein showers his film is symbolism (everything is either phallic or vaginal shaped). Teeth, at first glance, looks like an anti-woman horror but when Dawn's teacher talks about evolution ("mutations have always been essential to survival") and all the men on show are either wimps, assholes, misogynists, rapists or sleazy doctors, the movie changes sides and stays there. Teeth is funny, vicious and has the ability to turn every man into a quivering mess, but Lichtenstein lets himself down every so often. The movie is inconsistent in tone, with the director unsure if he's making a serious comment on the male fear of female sexuality, or a parody of those camp '50s horror that revelled in bad dialogue, poor pacing and worse acting. That said, you won't forget Teeth in a hurry - this cult-horror-in-the-making will give you the willies (pun intended).

Review by Gavin Burke