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Teeth (2007)

Teeth: A comprehensive review

Teeth is a film released in 2007 about a young girl with teeth in her vagina. Need I say more? The whole plot centers around the folk tale of "vagina dentata" found in many cultures from South America to South Asia. It is a cautionary tale told to young tribesmen in which raping can lead to getting your penis bitten off. In this movie, young Dawn is a devout celibate, active in her high school's purity club (which aren't a thing I'm pretty sure). She is so resolute to this cause that she hasn't even ventured down to her own nether region to discover what lies inside. She grows up next to a nuclear plant in a broken family with a screwed up punk step brother. She views him as a sinful degenerate because he has sex with his girlfriend. Her whole belief system becomes a source of internal struggle as soon as she meets handsome Tobey, who also claims to be a "purist". She fantasizes but doesn't succumb to temptation as they flirt and date. They eventually venture off into the woods to a spot known for banging. Tobey is in the mood and thinks he's about to get his dick wet, however Dawn is not down and tries to stick to her core conviction. Tobey won't take the rejection and plows on only to get his johnson stuck. After a sickening crunching noise, he pulls out a bloody nub of a chode and Dawn's vagina spits out his wiener. Tobey is now dead and Dawn completely distraught and confused. Dawn doesn't tell anyone but is noticeably different, especially when she tries to speak in front of the Purity club at school. Dawn does some research on what a vagina is actually supposed to look like and discovers there's no teeth. Disturbed and even more confused she makes a trip to gynecologist only to be molested by the schemey doctor. As he is going above and beyond the call of duty inside her, the teeth attack and in a violent scene he loses his fingers. She leaves this time more disturbed than her last encounter, but determined to get to the bottom of this conundrum. After some AOL web searching, she discovers vagina dentata folk lore where the teeth need to be conquered. She turns to a douchey guy she rejected in her purity days and pops a xanny and has great consensual sex. They think it has been defeated and continue to have sex on a separate occasion. Yet again Dawn is bamboozled. Her lover answers the phone mid-bang and brags that he's "f*cking Dawn, bro. I told you you'd lose the bet." She gets furious when she realizes he's just doing it for a bet. The dude experiences some serious coitus interruptus when the teeth bit off his penis. At this point, Dawn is hopeless but begins to embrace her affliction. After hearing that her step brother beat and attacked her Dad. She comes home to seduce him and bits off his cock with her teeth. The movie ends with her releasing that disease has become her weapon as she hitch hikes out of town only to be trapped in a car with a creepy old man.

This film can be summarized with the first line of this paper but I decided to delve deeper into the story Mitchell Lichtenstein, the director, was trying to tell and evaluate his effectiveness. "Teeth" is a story of Dawn's transformation from an innocent virgin to a grungy vigilante. With each victim her appearance changes; her makeup, hair, and clothes become darker and she loses innocence but gains knowledge of herself. However, there really isn't much more than that to the movie. Dawn is played by the forgettable Jess Weixler who seems to resemble every female actor in early 2000's B movies. Her performance isn't terrible but she seems to be repeating the same acting over and over. It should be noted that her transformation is impressive and subtle but that should be credited to the make up artists and other behind the scenes crew. The director did make great use of the nuclear plant and evolutionary mutation/adaptation as a motif to suggest this deformity is actually just evolution taking its course. Otherwise, I would give this movie ⅖ stars. One star for the grisly subject matter and one for the hilarious looking 3 detached penises appearing in the film. In summary, don't waste the 1 hour 37 minutes on this movie just to say you watched it.