Teeth

Teeth (2007)
****
Wow did this blow my expectations out of the water. I went into this one expecting to be offended/repulsed by some misogynistic titillation fest. I remember seeing a poster of this a few years ago, and thinking that the premise of a girl using the teeth inside her vagina to castrate young dudes seemed to perfectly capture a whole genre of male fears of women's sexuality. Well, duh. Of course, I didn't get from the poster that this was indeed the whole point of the movie--a brilliant and understated satire built into a well paced and legitimately gory horror flick. It's just damn damn good stuff.



This gynecologist is about to be a few digits short.


A cute blonde high school girl, Dawn, opens the movie speaking at a "purity" rally--essentially the god squadder youth group, explaining to all the kids why sex is so horrible. That was probably my first inkling that this was going to be better than expected--the director totally nailed that whole religious youth retreat vibe. After her talk, Dawn meets the new guy, and the classic "ruh roh" scene happens where the two pubescent hormone machines collide. The first half of the movie then becomes sort of an indie-parody of an after-school special; we watch as the two innocents try to resist temptation. Of course, we know the title of the movie, and we've seen the two big nuclear cooling towers looming above Dawn's little brick ranch home, so we're watching this slow build of tension totally waiting for the payoff of weird freaky shit. And, fair to say, half expecting it to cop out when it comes to it. Nope. Totally worth it. Check this one out.