Delayed Reaction: Teeth

Premise: A teenage girl realizes that she has teeth in her vagina.

This is a good example of a movie that’s hurt by its reputation. I definitely expected Teeth to be a much worse movie than it was. I mean, it’s the vagina teeth movie. Horror is lousy with movies where a filmmaker had one interesting idea and no idea how to fill out a movie around it. That’s what I expected from Teeth: a B-movie with a good pitch. I won’t pretend that Teeth is a masterpiece, but it is better than that expectation.

 

The biggest warning sign for me going in is that it’s labelled as a Horror Comedy. With that premise, I was very scared of the jokes that would lead to. Much to my delight, the comedy is in how straight they play the movie. It’s a silly premise with exaggerated characters – that’s what makes it funny – but the story is taken seriously. It’s really just the end when the film fully embraces the fun.

 

The challenge with this movie is, to put it bluntly, in order for Jess Weixler’s Dawn to get retribution, she must first get penetrated. It’s a premise that almost demands sexual assault. I don’t trust a lot of low budget horror filmmakers to handle that challenge with grace. For the most part, Teeth shows restraint though. Except for hinting at it early on, it waits a long time for the first bite. That is set up as an assault to get there, but the movie relishes in the bite, not the assault leading up to it. She bites the creepy gynecologist before he could do anything really bad. By the time she bites the classmate who turned out to sleep with her as a bet, she has control of the situation. And the climactic bite has her as the aggressor.

 

The movie is still bad in a lot of ways. Intentional or not, a lot of the acting is pretty broad. It’s not surprising that I recognize exactly one actor from something else I’ve seen. The cinematography had me thinking about The Room repeatedly. The filmmaker has leveled up in his productions since then and he hasn’t quite returned to this kind of movie. That’s probably for the best. Teeth does feel like a happy accident.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend