Tobey starts to rape her

He should have taken Dawn’s

screams of “no,” for an answer

- because her anatomy is unique in the extreme

Dawn has vagina dentata,

a mythical condition in which

the female sex organ grows teeth

...you can guess the rest

‘Teeth’ Delivers Biting Commentary on Sexuality

A man’s worst fear is realized in “Teeth,” the most original movie of the year.

This quirky independent film, written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein (“Resurrection”), is a darkly comic metaphor for society’s fear of female sexuality.

Dawn (Jess Weixler) is the epitome of chastity. The smart and attractive teen is an active spokesgirl for a wait-until-marriage virginity group and represses the sexual curiosity of adolescence.

Her prim and proper ways draw the ire of her delinquent stepbrother (John Hensley, “Nip/Tuck”) who lusts after her.

A budding romance with fellow chastity ally Tobey (Hale Appleman) brings Dawn to an alarming discovery, which at first only reinforces her aversion to casual sex.

During the heat of a clandestine make-out session, Tobey starts to rape her. He should have taken Dawn’s screams of “no,” for an answer - because her anatomy is unique in the extreme.

Dawn has vagina dentata, a mythical condition in which the female sex organ grows teeth, and ... well, you can guess the rest.

Traumatized and shamed by the ordeal, Dawn seeks medical counsel that further muddles her understanding of her body. And it is no wonder she is so confused.

Her condition aside, her school’s sexual education class does not discuss, let alone show diagrams of the female reproductive system.

In an entertaining albeit graphic way, “Teeth” examines the tug of war between female self-empowerment and oppression through sex, and society’s fear and judgment of female sexuality.

Much like the peculiar indie “Donnie Darko,” “Teeth” is demented genius. It is unexpected in the brutality of its content and the sly, comic tone of its delivery.

Men may not relish the visuals of the film, and rightfully so, but this is one story audiences can sink their teeth into.

Sex Satire 'Teeth' Provides Feminist Bite

"Teeth" is the "Incredible Hulk" of sex satires. When boys take advantage of sweet, vestal Dawn (Jess Weixler) they lose their penises. This girl might have a flower. But the flower has mandibles.

As amateurishly made as it is, "Teeth" runs on a kind of angry distrust toward boys. It doesn't think a lot of them, in much the same way certain teen comedies and horror films don't think highly of girls.

The reversal is a lot more satisfying to watch, both as a laughing feminist critique of horniness and as a gleeful inversion of the vagina dentata myth.

It's all the more striking because the movie has been written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein, a 51-year-old man.

Dawn is an enthusiastic young voice in a high-school chastity group. It's treated like a cult. She preaches the sanctity of holding out, wearing a little red promise ring on her finger.

Her one sex fantasy is set on her wedding night. The groom hikes up her dress, but then the image of the snapping jaws she saw in an old science-fiction movie pops into her head.

When one nice kid suddenly forces himself on Dawn, Dawn's jaws force themselves on him. She's horrified, does an Internet search, discovers she might actually have the fabled vagina dentata, and consults a gynecologist.

Until that gynecologist visit, everything about the movie is forced. For about 40 minutes or so, "Teeth" is a comedy whose gags don't work.

One shot in a forest starts by staring into the hollow part of a tree, and when Dawn and a chaste suitor go swimming they wind up exploring a cave. The movie's early tone isn't outlandish enough to get a real laugh.

Having that little house of Dawn's nestled at the foot of a smoking nuclear reactor is a touch that's simultaneously discreet and too much. (Is that why Dawn's mother is dying?)

For about an hour you're desperate for the cheap irreverence of John Waters, which is there once Dawn tries to flee the doctor's examination table while the doctor's arm is still stuck in her teeth.

Part of the reason you're nervous to find this funny is because you're waiting for Dawn to find it funny, too - or you're waiting for Jess Weixler to. And for almost 40 minutes, it seems like the movie might be humming along at the expense of both the character and the woman playing her.

But eventually Lichtenstein hands the movie over to his star, who proves remarkably game for the silliness she's required to perform. Weixler gets a joke that initially seemed to be on her. She delivers the cues for the movie's comedy.

Lichtenstein is the son of the artist Roy Lichtenstein, and that oversize, sometimes-funny-sometimes-not sensibility must be genetic.

As a director, Mitchell's glee in showing actual severed penises probably owes more to the Troma film house than to anybody else.

But watching the movie, I thought about the taunting, damning work of certain artists labeled as "feminist" - Georgia O'Keeffe, Barbara Kruger, and Joyce Wieland, for starters.

In that vein, there's something almost subversive about Lichtenstein's affection for his heroine and the pleasure she ultimately takes in re-appropriating a misogynistic myth.

By the end of the film she's not some virginal damsel. She's on the verge of becoming a vaginal vigilante.