By Eric Kohn

Teeth
Directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein


If a single moment in Grindhouse, last summer’s wacky double bill homage to the exploitation genre, symbolizes the maximum glee of politically incorrect entertainment, it would have to be Quentin Tarantino’s melting penis. The occasion arrives near the climax of Death Proof, Robert Rodriguez’s pus-filled zombie movie, when Tarantino’s militant enforcer decomposes during an ill-fated rape attempt. There’s enough on-screen to identify the symbolism implied by the man frequently considered Hollywood’s foremost do-what-I-want auteur displaying his dwindling manhood—but beyond that, it reveals a decidedly primal form of entertainment. The allure of watching bodies hauled into a public space lies at the root of voyeuristic pleasures often associated with the cinema. Still, it’s usually preferable to show some restraint in such an arena to leave some room for imagination.  

So goes the thrill ride in Teeth, a twisted inversion of the standard rampaging murderer story, when virginal teen Dawn (Jess Weixler) accidentally discovers that her desecrated vagina contains a row of dick-severing chompers. We’re never given the money shot of those titular devices, but their unseemly presence forms the real star of the show. It’s a premise bound to induce giggles of approval sight unseen, which makes the amount of minutiae that director Mitchell Lichtenstein allots to the plot especially surprising. Through bloated exposition, Dawn’s commitment to chastity with dogmatic high school activism gives more than enough definition to her shimmering purity. When a horny classmate feigns his allegiance to her cause as a diplomatic bid to get into her pants, he loses a key organ faster than you can say erectile dysfunction.

Unlike Dawn’s bewitched genitalia, Lichtenstein shows the aftermath of the dismemberment in full graphic detail, a pattern that continues in later scenes, when she grows familiar with the power of her seduction and the weapon between her legs.
This revelation, coupled with her gradual evolution from utter shock at the sight of a mangled member to satisfaction over her feminine superiority, reveals the true intentions of Teeth as a coming-of-age story.

It works until it doesn’t. There’s a delicate irony to Lichtenstein’s two-pronged narrative: He subverts oversexed tomfoolery by giving the upper hand to a young woman, but the uncouth set-up condescends to the notion of the body as a temple.
Instead, Lichtenstein views it as a battleground. Dawn strikes back at a longtime male antagonist for years of gender condescension by feeding his penis to a dog—a gimmick also featured in the climax to Eli Roth’s Hostel: Part II, which was produced (and heavily endorsed) by Tarantino. In both cases, the directors couldn’t help their indulgences.