In this case, however, the victimization aspect is removed. It also crystallizes the argument of some men that women use sex as a weapon. Teeth has an awful lot to say about how men and women relate to each other and how sexual coercion can come in all forms. Underneath it all, as surprising as this may sound, there is actually a theme about sexual power. And by making all the characters in her orbit such bores, it increases our willingness to go with her wherever the script takes her. If we don't sympathize with Dawn, Teeth is a failure. Credit both Lichtenstein and TV actress Jess Weixler, who is excellent in this role, with achieving this. The silliness and satirization whirl around her but they don't really touch her. (How could a girl get well past puberty and not figure out that there's something different about herself?) Outside of her religious proclivities, Dawn is treated with dignity and intelligence. Admittedly, she's painfully naïve but that's not an insurmountable problem. One reason Teeth works is that the character of Dawn is developed as a real person. (Consider the endlessly repetitive shots of the two cooling towers.) In order for the film to work, you have to be able to embrace this approach and to open yourself up to what the director is doing. It even goes over-the-top with the idea that nuclear power plants can cause mutations. It's another aspect of parody in a movie that never stops poking fun at genres and conventions. In these scenes, he's aping really bad buckets-of-blood horror movies and going for the combined groan/chuckle. It's pretty cheesy gore and I'm reasonably certain Lichtenstein expected it to get the laughs it's likely to get. Once the teeth get busy in Teeth, there's a fair amount of gore. And when it comes to a fight between a wimp and a bully, the nice guy doesn't finish first. The nerds in this film may look and sound like those in all the other teen films but their motivations aren't quite as chaste. However, as things develop, we learn that all nerds aren't created equal. In the usual teen film, the nerd is the character who either remains as the comic relief sidekick or emerges as the romantic lead. Only he doesn't know exactly how carefully guarded it is, despite having nearly lost a finger during a childhood game of "you show me yours, I'll show you mine." His goal in life is to be the one who claims her carefully guarded virginity. Her mother (Vivienne Benesch) is dying, her father (Lenny von Dohlen) is a wreck, and her step-brother, Brad (John Hensley), is a cross between a cretin and a monster. And woe be unto anyone who seeks entry without permission… Meanwhile, Dawn's home life is a bigger mess than her romantic one. In her case, the mythical "vagina dentate" is no myth - she really has teeth lining the inside of her vagina. It leads to a place where Tobey discovers that Dawn has a biological oddity. So she resolves not to see him, but that doesn't stop the relationship. He stirs something within her and she's frightened that if she spends time with him, it will lead to more than just impure thoughts. Hormones have never been a problem for Dawn until the arrival of newcomer Tobey (Hale Appleman). She's devoted to the cause and has become a motivational speaker. She belongs to a group of students who have agreed to save their virginity for the marriage bed. One wonders if this is what a teenage romantic comedy might look like if David Lynch had made it.ĭawn (Jess Weixler) is an average High School teenager in a backwater town. There's something nasty underlying all the sweetness here. For those weaned on the productions of John Hughes and his many copiers, the fate of Tobey (played by Hale Appleman with more than a hint of Patrick Dempsey) will be quite a shocker. You see characters going through the motions the way their predecessors have in countless teen comedies and/or horror movies but the results are decidedly different. Teeth delights in taking staple situations and twisting them, sometimes violently. Still, this is the kind of calling card that gets filmmakers noticed and makes viewers intrigued to see what's next. Teeth's take-chances, take-no-prisoners-approach is refreshing but there are times when things become a little too sloppy or a little too campy for the mismatched tones and colliding approaches to fully gel. The film doesn't limit its field of choice: it's a black comedy, it's a drama about teen angst, it's a romance gone bad, it's a B-grade horror film, it's an allegory about female empowerment. Teeth is not only odd but it's genre-defying. That may well be true, but that doesn't stop writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein from trying in his debut feature. It's often said that there's nothing new in Hollywood.
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