Teeth

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A clever and affecting thriller/comedy about a subject that absolutely cannot be written about in a daily newspaper or website that's for a general audience. The film is a giddy pastiche of styles -- slasher picture, faith film, social satire, teen romp, '50s atom bomb monster movie -- and it makes you laugh and squirm and grin in appreciation.

Film Threat Jamie Tipps

Like a deranged version of “Clueless,” the film is light-hearted, yet subversive, displaying a surprisingly wicked bite…literally.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Campy, shameless and sophisticated, Lichtenstein's debut is gutsy and original, and it makes "Juno" look positively tame by comparison.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The film should have the edgy wit of "Election" here, but instead is played so straight it's hard to make the shift when things start getting really crazy. But stick with it and you'll be rewarded with a new kind of superhero and a couple of the ghastliest, most outrageous penis jokes ever imagined.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Teeth is not only odd but it's genre-defying. The film doesn't limit its field of choice: it's a black comedy, it's a drama about teen angst, it's a romance gone bad, it's a B-grade horror film, it's an allegory about female empowerment.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A smart and creepy fable in which the myth of the vagina dentata - yes, a toothed sex organ - is transplanted to teen suburbia.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Funny, very clever and still packs some cover-your-face bloody thrills that top any "Saw" or "Hostel" movie.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The most alarming cautionary tale for men with wandering libidos since "Fatal Attraction." It may also be the first horror movie that women drag men to see rather than the reverse.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Director Mitchell Lichtenstein finds new ground in the over-tilled suburbia of David Lynch and John Waters.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

It's a brilliant concept for a horror movie, not least because the genre is usually so dedicated to male gratification, but the material requires a consistent tone, and first-time director Lichtenstein (son of pop artist Roy) can't quite get a handle on it.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

An anti-date movie if there ever was one, Teeth is a darkly engaging if uneven horror movie spoof centering on men's fear of castration.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Teeth is the "Incredible Hulk" of sex satires.

Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson

Teeth is about female exploitation and male castration.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

This is going to be a notorious film that young audiences will be daring themselves to see, but it's actually funnier, darker and more troubling before it turns into a carnival of repeated dismemberment.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Most of the movie works because the blonde Weixler has a darling-daffy face (a pinch of Alicia Silverstone, a dollop of Drew Barrymore) and a should-I-or-shouldn’t-I ambivalence about sex that’s part realism, part screwball.

Village Voice Jim Ridley

Veteran actor Lichtenstein, the son of Pop artist Roy, rarely finds a workable tone, muffling the splattery mayhem with sluggish pacing and a tendency toward camp. Still, even if the movie's little more than a curio, I love the thought of Lichtenstein at the pitch meeting: "It's Jaws meets The Vagina Monologues!"

Variety Todd McCarthy

A game, disarming lead performance from Jess Weixler, who won a jury acting prize at Sundance, goes some way toward making palatable this mish-mash, whose provocative nature could carve out a certain commercial niche.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Teenage horror-movie spoof, John Waters parody, No Nukes protest movie, twisted sex-education film, quasi-feminist fable, outrageous stunt: Mitchell Lichtenstein’s clever, crude comedy, Teeth, is all these and more.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Turnabout is fair play, to be sure, but ultimately virtually everyone in Teeth ends up using sex as a weapon, edged or otherwise, to the detriment of all concerned. Just say "Ow."

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film's mix of cheap gags, macabre coming-of-age story, social satire and Cronenbergian body horror is apparently meant to gel into black comedy, but it never quite does.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

There's no scarier myth for males, and Mr. Lichtenstein turns various images of emasculation into a black comedy that flirts, fairly tediously, with pornography.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Lichtenstein's putative switcheroo on the Vagina Dentata trope is to play it as some kind of token of female empowerment, but it's pretty clear that the writer/director didn't think things through on any counts, contenting himself that the putative outrageousness of the concept could see him through.