Rating:  

Up on the block is 2007′s Teeth, starring Jess Weixler as the film’s protagonist Dawn O’Keefe.

Let’s just get something right out of the way, before I even start the review:   Yes, this movie is about a ravenous toothed vagina.

While you think about the mechanics of that, I’ll get on with the rest of the details.   First of all, my expectations of this film were low.   I mean, seriously low.   How much funding could a film about fanged foo-foo really get?   Much to my surprise, quite a bit.   The overall execution of the movie is quite good, the production quality is excellent, the special effects are sufficient, and the acting isn’t really all that bad.

Dawn is a reserved, sexually-repressed high school student that speaks at abstinence meetings.   Her family is well adjusted,  and she dearly loves her sickly Mother and her nurturing Stepfather.   However the black sheep of the family is her stepbrother Brad, the role well-played by John Hensley.    Brad has serious built-up angst against his family, to which the viewer is given not-so subtle hints.   To put it bluntly, he wants to screw Dawn, but his father married her mom, so now it’s technically his step-sister and incest.   Brad is rightfully pissed at everyone because of that, because Dawn is actually kind of hot.   So instead, he listens to Slayer and smokes weed, and bangs his current girlfriend with his bedroom door open.   Completely reasonable alternatives.

Meanwhile Dawn tries to nurture a sexless relationship with a fellow abstinence-meeting love-at-first-sight gangly classmate, Toby, played by Hale Apperman.   Toby is equally repressed and they’re both too shy to make any first moves.   After a few erotic dreams Toby’s pent-up sexual pressure ultimately boils over, and things end badly, but I probably don’t have to elaborate on how.   This horrific experience pushes an already sexually bordering Dawn over the edge, and she snaps–I mean, figuratively–into a more promiscuous version of herself.   Things continue to escalate while Dawn tries to figure out if she’s normal, or if she’s got something unique.  Perhaps “vagina dentana”.   She visits a gynecologist to find out, and well… you probably know what happens.

Told you she was hot.

The uh, “climax” of the film occurs when her beloved Mother’s death is exacerbated by her step-brother’s indifference (he was busy banging his girlfriend).  Dawn uses Brad’s desire of her to get revenge, and well, you know what happens.

So you’re probably wondering by now, “Yea ok cool, but do they show it happening?”.   Yes, yes they do.   Technically this is a horror/thriller movie after all, so they’re kind of obligated.   Further male discomfort is achieved through a satisfying “crunch” sound.   You even get to see a tooth left behind on one of the… stumps.   Unfortunately you’re also treated to a few cut scenes of the severed proboscises, so in that department the film comes through.    Overall, not a bad movie at all.

So hold on, is this movie really a flop?

He's not singing to Journey.

Yes. Because, you see, it’s about a toothed vagina.  Even before you see the movie, you know what’s going to happen.    The only point in watching the movie is to just see it happen.    Writing a plot around a toothed vagina doesn’t leave a lot of room for creativity, and it shows.   Most of this is made up by the fact the film is clearly done tongue-in-cheek combined with the above-average production quality.  Still it doesn’t take an astrophysicist to know what’s going to happen in the movie, and you can see it coming from miles away.   Really the only point of watching it is to see that scene…ahem…executed.  However Dawn is pretty hot, and you are treated a nude scene, so that could be reason enough right there.

Chomp on that.