Teeth [DVD] [2008]

Not so much a conventional horror as black, vaguely feminist comedy. Your enjoyment of the film will depend on whether you own a penis or not. If so, be prepared to squirm whilst laughing at the sheer OTT scenes of detached little sausages. There's also a subtle satire on US sexual abstinence cults - though the aforementioned scenes are enough to put anybody off.

It's a great idea and there a theme of suppressed female sexuality running throughout, but there's really nowhere you can go with it once you get over the initial shock. Consequently, the film kind of peters out and we are left with Dawn as the avenging angel against sexual predators everywhere.

It's not a film that everybody will get but it deserves to be watched if only for the quirky and wonderfully tasteless premise.

The Amazon synopsis review of this makes it sound like a typical horror film with a very unusual protaganist. As a fan of horrors I bought it on that basis but enjoyed it on a completely different level. There are only three very gory moments and it takes a very long time to get to the first, whilst the scene is set. By that point I was far more intrigued by the social message it was sending across.

Dawn is not your average woman (which is probably just as well as it would be the end of civilisation)and the question as to why she has teeth in her vagina is never really answered, although the opening scenes of her house sitting under huge nuclear cooling towers would seem to point you in that direction. As does a scene when the school teacher is talking about evolutionary adaptations. You are left to make up your own mind. What I found fascinating, and thought was very well done, was the whole concept of chastity and the repressing of female sexuality. It would be amusing if it wasn't still so prevalent, particularly in the US where such organisations as the Promise really do exist. We just don't talk about, or see, vaginas. Well done to the makers who took it on as a subject!

I thought all the actors did a great job, particularly Dawn, who really only goes to "empowered bitch", as Amazon put it, right at the end of the film. That language, ironically, also says something about women: why does being empowered make her a bitch? She has to come to terms with something which goes totally against what she knows and what she believes and it is very believable. She only sinks her teeth in, so to speak, when she realises she's been had and, at that point, who can blame her?

The gory moments are pretty gory but they're short and sharp and not even particularly over the top, given the subject. There are some dark comedic moments as well. This is not a film for slasher fans, or even those who like the "Severance" variety. If you want wall to wall blood, screaming and ladies running away on high heels this is not for you. Neither are you going to chuckle all the way through. But if you like to look at odd ideas done very well then give this a go. Top marks to the producers for taking an age old legend and giving it a very modern twist.

Teeth is a very strange film indeed, but a masterpiece none the less. Jess weixler the lead actress is excellent and gives a very believable performance, the film has some very painfull bloody scenes of male genital severance. The story starts out about an innocent virgin girl, who in the end embraces her special gift.