Teeth

Introduction

In a small US town, overlooked by a nuclear plant of undisclosed description, there is a growing abstinence movement, known as 'The Promise', to which many of the area's young people belong.

They are all trying their very best to resist temptation, and remain virgins "in His eyes" until they are married. Much of the temptation comes from the 21st century obession with bodies and expressing yourself in as many ways as possible, but some comes from those who are closest to them.

Dawn O'Keefe is a member of 'The Promise'. She is pure as the driven snow, liking nothing better than to decorate T-shirts, whilst avoiding anything around her which may send her down the wrong path - such as suggestive advertisements, human biology lessons, and any film of PG-13 and over, as they may contain scenes of 'heavy making out'.

Dawn, however, harbours a secret, but even she doesn't know what it is. She feels different somehow, and it may well all be connected to an apparently innocent game of 'Doctors and Nurses' played in a paddling pool with her step-brother when they were both very small. Her step-brother has been affected by this in many ways ever since.

Dawn meets Tobey, a fellow member of her group, and they are immediately attracted to each other. Meeting up at a local beauty spot to go swimming. They kiss.....and things just go from bad to worse, mainly for Tobey...


 

Video

All seems ok, except the CGI moments (mostly of the so-called nuclear cooling towers) seem far too artificial. Colours are nice and vivid, and the more gory moments contain suitably dark, obviously highly-oxygenated, blood effects that appear quite natural, as far as I can imagine of course.
 

Audio

Nothing too difficult for the DD surround to cope with. The 'chomping'effects are nicely handled, with suitable spurting noises to follow, and clearish vocal talent.


 

Extras

The commentary from director Mitchell Lichtenstein is fairly mininal in content, and to be honest, fairly minimal in interest as well. A few entertaining comments about the prosthetics needed to achieve the desired gory effects are about the only thing that grabbed my attention, although he freely admits that there was at least one scene which he would have improved (mainly to help us understand what was going on), and adds a little nugget here and there to explain certain motivations behind some of the characters. After this, I felt less sorry for the gynaecologist.



The obligatory 'Behind the Scenes' featurette gives the usual 'this is the motivation behind my character' spiel, and explains how the more cringeworthy effects were realised, but all could have been done in less than the 30 minutes it actually lasts.

Five deleted scenes are included, which, if added, wouldn't even make a decent attempt at a 'Director's Cut' of the film, but it's still interesting to see a couple of moments which help undertstand a few unexplained comments in the final draft.

Trailers for three other Lionsgate productions: The Mist, Skinwalkers, Disaster Movie. None of these made me want to rush out and see any of them.


 

Conclusion

I'm pretty sure that if Sigmund Freud had seen this film, he would have torn the whole premise to shreds, and then taken Lichtenstein into therapy for a good few years at least.

'What would happen if a woman had teeth in her vagina?' isn't a question I've often asked myself, although Mitchell Lichtenstein has obviously considered it, albeit briefly (and I was recently told on MSN by a mate of mine that he sometimes had nightmares about a 'beak' resembling an octopuses mouth, which lay in the same area, so perhaps it's a more pervasive fear than I realise).

After watching Teeth, I'm wondering whether something a little more thought-provoking could have been created, or perhaps it was all just an excuse to see blokes have their willies and fingers bitten off by an unseen something lurking in the moist depths, which may well resemble a cross between a shark and a lamprey, yet still have some human qualities.

I'm leaning sadly towards the latter.



How the 'adapatation' came around in Dawn isn't explained, although the ridiculously prominent 'nuclear' cooling towers overshadowing everything could have had something to do with it. They were obviously in need of a clean as well, as I'm sure those structures just throw up water vapour, and not thick, black smoke. Anyway, I digress as usual.

There's a certain amount of humour, albeit fairly sick, throughout the film, but with everything from character development to questions on morality and religion being so one-dimensional, you don't actually care about anyone.

The majority of men also appear to be potential, or literal rapists, which may well give the excuse for some gratuitous 'bobbiting', but could also say a lot about the mind of Lichtenstein himself.

On the plus side, Jess Weixler is fairly personable as Dawn, and is often a pleasure to watch. Very little else is.