Teeth (2007)
Director
Mitchell Lichtenstein
Writer
Mitchell Lichtenstein
Cast
Jess Weixler, John Hensley, John Pais and Hale Appleman
Vagina dentata is Latin for toothed vagina. Various cultures have folk tales about women with toothed vaginas, frequently told as cautionary tales warning of the dangers of sex with strange women.
--Source: Wikipedia
(The source for everything in the Universe.)
Sounds pretty intriguing as a film, doesn't it? When I saw the trailer about six months ago it was so strange, creepy and disturbing that I knew I had to see it. The story of a young girl in High School advocating monogamy with extreme christian values who deals with temptations like every girl her age with a little twist. Here is the trailer I watched.
The trailer seemed like a concept spawned from the mind of David Cronenberg, a director not afraid of mixing sexuality with horror. What I got was something completely different from the trailer as the trailer made it seem much more subtle and set a completely different tone from what the actual movie.
Instead of creepy and disturbing I got Looney Tunes with severed penis props. The film itself seemed to have some sort of personality disorder, it wanted to be taken seriously the pacing was meant for an atmosphere of impending horror but the cartoonish gore and horrible acting made it seem like it wanted to be part funny B-movie just not very funny at all. The Mist took a B-movie concept and amped up the production and talent value and turned out to be a great horror film. Teeth attempted the exact opposite and it was an "epic fail." Interesting idea, terrible execution.
Much of the story didn't make any sense to me either. We're following a group of Dawn's friends through much of the begining of the film. They're all uptight christians who don't watch R-rated films, don't believe in evolution and are totally against any sort of sexual contact... yet all they talk about is sex. Much of the story and dialogue is so forced, much of these drawn out scenes are just boring since there is not much depth to anything as if it's trying to set an atmosphere but just comes off as sophmoric. Yes, it's an independant film but atleast put a little more work into the script. Not all of the problems come from the script, the music doesn't fit the tone of the movie from bass drums to generic score you would hear from Wild Hogs.
Teeth received mostly positive reviews to my surprise but I cannot recommend it. There are many other great movies that fit the tone the trailer set up such as Cronenberg's Videodrome and Shivers which would be considered "body horror" or "venereal horror." Check those out instead.
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