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December 7, 2007 > Arts & Entertainment > Teeth gnaws at audiences’ primal fears, gag reflex

Teeth gnaws at audiences’ primal fears, gag reflex

By Nikki Metzgar | Thresher Editorial Staff

Like the size of the universe or the dimensions of a black hole, the 2007 Sundance Film Festival selection Teeth is difficult to wrap one’s mind around.

Teeth focuses on a subject that is rather unseemly, mixing the strategies of B-movie horror and social commentary to create a film that is at once terrible and intriguing.

The main character, Dawn (The Big Bad Swim’s Jess Weixler), is a Catholic schoolgirl struggling with her budding sexuality, which she mitigates through her participation in the local chastity club. But even the promise ring decorating her hand is not enough to withhold the passions gripping young Tobey (Beautiful Ohio’s Hale Appleman). The couple is messing around when she tells him to stop. He doesn’t, and they both discover — to their mutual dismay — that she has a toothed vagina. No does mean no, after all.

After Dawn realizes she was born with this dangerous body part, she goes on a man-entrapping gore-fest castration spree for the entire second half of the film. Weixler won Special Dramatic Jury Prize for Acting at Sundance for this performance.

We have to ask ourselves whether to laugh, to cringe, or to tap our chins and go “hmm.” This film has become some sort of reluctant fetish. I’m horrified but curious, and disgusted by my own inquisitiveness. I want to see this movie so badly, and yet not at all.

Since it became one of the “most talked about films” at Sundance, Teeth has premiered in limited release in several cities with a projected further release in 2008. By then it will have been discussed even more.

The movie’s official Web site has some amusing insight to offer: “Independent filmmaking is at its most exceptional when it defies categorization, and Teeth is jaw-droppingly undefinable.” The film is also touted as “part horror film, part erotic/moral debate, and part outrageous assault on male vulnerability and fear.” Say whaaa?

The film brings up the vagina dentata myth — Latin for “toothed vagina,” — that appears in different forms in several cultures and is referenced occasionally in modern day, although perhaps not as blatantly as in Teeth. The myth relates to some compelling ideas about society’s perception of female sexuality — i.e., that it is bad — and what the act of intercourse means for both a man and a woman. But the film takes some questionable approaches to exploring those themes.

The trailer is hilarious. It features the scene in which Dawn visits the gynecologist sometime after the unpleasant incident with Tobey. She looks nervous so the male doctor asks whether it is her first visit. When she nods yes, he reassures her, “Don’t worry. I don’t bite.” Then the screen goes black to the sound of his screams, presumably because his hand is getting mangled. It’s so bad it’s good, but so disconcerting I’m troubled. Are biting jokes really appropriate?

Maybe the giggles are just a nervous response, like the giggles from sixth-grade sex education class, but when one of the plot keywords on IMDb.com is “eating penis,” one has to wonder. What has happened to America’s cinematic integrity? Is this actually something extremely poignant and your laughter is an expected reaction that only proves the filmmaker’s point — what that is, you still don’t understand?

This “outrageous assault on male vulnerability and fear,” was actually written and directed by a man, Mitchell Lichtenstein, son of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, who was a career actor before Teeth. This is a film made by a man about ghoulish male characters, like an oversexual stepbrother — and perhaps it bears repeating — a woman with a toothed vagina. I question whether a man is qualified to address this subject matter. A man probably is, but whether he is doing society’s perception of women any favors with this method of address is still a separate question.

So Teeth will probably end up being one of two things: an intellectual exploration of how femininity is constructed not only in society, but also by women themselves, and what happens when violent revenge is thrown into the mix, or a disgusting, blood-soaked comedy-horror that will probably make me wish I were never born. Lichenstein must be an evil genius, because undoubtedly I will be there to find out.

Nikki Metzgar is a Baker College senior and arts and entertainment editor.

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