How on earth has it taken this long for some camera-slinging Sundance wunderkind to reinvent vagina dentata mythology for the go-go twenty-first century? Well done, young Mr. Lichtenstein for addressing this lately neglected ghetto of gyne-horror.
Teeth, a hormonally raging, ironically minded morality play about a girl with incisors where no incisors ought to be, is a heap of fun and painfully bloodied appendages. It’s Heathers reimagined as Cannibal Ferox.
The excellent Jess Weixler plays Dawn, a prissy True Love Waits militant with an inappropriately placed set of mutated fangs. Despite her enthusiasm for celibacy, Dawn remains an object of desire for various panting suitors and her messed up porn-hound stepbrother. Sadly for our virgin heroine, these wannabe swains are either unworthy or downright violent.
No matter. She has more diabolical wiles than a mean spirited Bukowski succubus. And she’s just figuring out how to use them.
Fainthearted gentlemen viewers who found themselves crossing their legs when Ellen Page took out her scalpel in Hard Candy would be advised to stay away. Others will relish the uniquely absurdist comedy of the rape-revenge sequences and perversely erotic teen fumbles. Or maybe just forgo sex for life.
Either way, it’s a monstrous success.