Teeth proves itself far smarter than its reputation suggests. Such a premise naturally suggests a sexploitation-style, shock-horror picture, when it is really a film that skewers male entitlement and sexual violence with unanticipated craft.
Two things can be true at once. A film can be both obscenely, laughably gory and nuanced, a contradiction often blatantly overlooked in Mitchell Lichtenstein’s body-horror debut, Teeth (2007). Part coming-of-age movie, and part thriller, Teeth follows Dawn, an avid ambassador of abstinence, as she struggles with desire, the audacity of men, and what lies between her legs: vagina dentata. A stranger to her own body, Dawn’s modesty is soon replaced with rage as she is continuously violated by predators-turned-prey, and she realises the power she holds. Jess Weixler plays Dawn perfectly: earnest, unassuming, and genuinely sweet, we see a girl once hopeful, grappling with things she can barely comprehend, betrayed by men and by her own body.
From the very beginning, it’s a satire on purity culture and the evangelical mis-education of America’s youth. Dawn’s belief that ‘love is worth waiting for’ is challenged by her teenage body and the arrival of a new addition to her Christian Chastity movement, Tobey (Hale Appleman). The irony of preaching the dangers of premarital sex, while possessing what she does, is played for sharp comedic value, but also functions well as a message about the harm of regressive ‘sex’ education. The cruel irony deepens when the purity she preaches is taken from her by Tobey, against her will. As the film unfolds, it becomes a sharp commentary on male entitlement, as she continues to face sexual violation in new forms.
Despite its intriguing blend of genres and its balanced execution, Teeth has not reached the same cult status as its ‘girl-horror’ counterparts, such as Jennifer’s Body (2009) or Ginger Snaps (2000). This is partly due to its subject matter, which isn’t easy to sell to a wide audience, and several shots of severed penises don’t exactly help. Its attachment to the Dimension Extreme label also hinders its success, as it is perhaps the only standout film in a line of terrible indie horrors.
When it was released in early 2008, it barely recovered its $2 million budget and has continued to fly under the radar ever since, despite a relatively positive critical response. It has been overlooked as a female-focused body-horror piece in an age when these stories are more widely consumed, and, for its sharp convergence of themes rather than its crude humour, it rightfully belongs in the black comedy and female rage canon.
It’s camp, making the most of its low budget and grotesque subject matter. Teeth’s director knows the limits of sincerity for a picture so inherently absurd and, just like his father, the great pop-art pioneer Roy Lichtenstein, he succeeds at making it self-referential. Of course, it nods to the genre and the trope’s history, because a film about vagina dentata could never resist its own mythology. Lichtenstein even leans into the psychoanalytic dimension of it all, making a visual reference to Medusa’s head at one point, fulfilling the inevitable Freudian requirement.
With the low-temperature hues typical of 2000s high school horror, the film’s formal style showcases a polished and rather artful direction. It feels Lynchian, at points, with shots of Dawn’s mundane, suburban surroundings set against the looming backdrop of two churning nuclear power plant towers. Playing on the yonic and phallic shapes that haunt the story, Lichtenstein’s style straddles cinematic subtlety and tongue-in-cheek mockery, perfectly balancing the film’s depiction. It’s an interesting exploration of horror, as the monstrous element is not actually the cause of fear: every victim is, in fact, a victim of their own violence, each taking from and violating Dawn, or at least intending to. Lichtenstein makes this clear, as we witness her overcome the teeth at one point, managing gore-free when consent is, more but still not entirely, involved.
Interestingly, one of the film’s biggest tricks is what it refuses to show, touching on female modesty more broadly. A scene involving a large gold sticker and an anatomical diagram of the vulva highlights another element of the mis-education of youth, addressing the censorship of the female body. This is echoed in the fact that we do not actually witness the film’s monstrous element, only its effects, and the rather excessive crunch it makes when invoked. Lichtenstein plays with what can be shown within limits, while also shifting the visual violence onto the male violators, whose dismemberment we see in full.
By withholding the film’s central horror while fully displaying its consequences, Teeth holds nuance and value that are often overlooked in favour of more digestible, less excessive horror. But of course, it can only go so far, with a male director-writer, and the comedic impulses that naturally come with a film about monstrous genitalia. As Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, writer of Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study, says of the work, there is no ‘free pass’ into the feminist category just because of its monstrous-feminine subject. It falls short in a few ways, and if it did not move beyond Dawn’s horror at herself, it would lose its most valuable point, becoming a film that foregrounds a woman’s monstrosity over her victimhood. The turn to rage that occurs when she begins to sense her own power and the ridiculous imbalance of violation she has faced is the element that solidifies the story’s strength.
Teeth proves itself far smarter than its reputation suggests. Such a premise naturally suggests a sexploitation-style, shock-horror picture, when it is really a film that skewers male entitlement and sexual violence with unanticipated craft. The film finds its real force in Dawn, and in her emergence from monstrosity through victimhood to vengeful hero. That turn from horror to rage is what makes Teeth endure, and is precisely why it should be recognised as the explorative film it really is. With the woman-focused body-horror resurgence since The Substance in 2024, and in anticipation of new titles like Natalie Erika James’ Saccharine, referring to those sacred 2000s texts feels necessary. With that, Teeth should finally take its place in the same canon.
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