I usually try not to talk about a specific scene in a film (for fear I will ruin it for the first time viewer) but there is one hilarious instance in Teeth I most mention. It involves Dawn O’Keefe and gynecologist. After investigating her vagina’s condition over the internet, Dawn decides to see a gynecologist to find out if it’s true (Vagina Dentata) and if there is something abnormal between her legs. The fact that Dawn lives in close proximity to a nuclear power plant, a plant shown numerous times in the background and that it may be the source of her mutation is never broached, except in the viewer’s mind by careful cinematography. During Dawn’s clinical visit and after the gynecologist has abused his authority (think Dr. Mott from the beginning of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle), both patient and doctor find out that Vagina Dentate is no myth. The viewer sits there and watches as the doctor vigorously attempts to pull his four inserted fingers out of Dawn’s vagina. That was no typo. Four fingers. The gynecologist is yanking left and right, Dawn’s body going right along with him as she grows more and more terrified by the doctor’s agony and the fact that he can’t get himself out of her. At first the scene is FUBAR because of the unethical behavior (You’re tight. Re-Lax.) of the doctor towards unsuspecting Dawn but then the tables are turned and the abuser and abusee switch roles. The scene sounds sick but keep in mind it is a horror movie after all, was well filmed and is very funny. It’s definitely one of the marquee scenes in Teeth.
Unlike most horror movies where the heroine, who in Teeth happens to be the antagonist as well, goes through no growth/personality change even after enduring a perilous or extraordinary situation, Dawn does. The viewer clearly sees it on her face in the last scene of the film. From a horror movie stand point, it’s about time. It’s tiring, boring, predictable and absurd that a character is exactly the same at the end of a horrible situation as they were at its outset.
Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Teeth isn’t a mainstream horror movie, there is no high body count, no splashy nudity (though there is nudity). Teeth is an independent horror movie whose antagonist is usually the stuff of most men’s fantasies. That it was turned into a monster that could divest a man of the majority of his reproductive organ is unsettling and will give many men pause the next time a coital encounter is at hand.
Rating: 6.5/10
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