And lo, a feminist classic is born.

I was impatiently waiting for my copy of "Teeth" by post and it finally came today.

Brilliant!

There's no way to conduct any discussion of the film without mentioning that it's about vagina dentata, one of the most enduring and culturally widespread nightmarish myths about female sexuality that the patriarchy ever did devise. But there are no spoilers to follow.

Briefly, the plot concerns a cherubic and chaste young blonde, Dawn O'Keefe (Jess Weixler), who lectures for a youth outreach program called "The Promise," a clear parody of the whole chastity ring virginity cults flourishing among the bible belt jeebus freaks. They tell teen girls that their worth resides in keeping a hymen intact until they get married. In her speech to the younger crowd of kids, Dawn likens virginity to a "gift" that must only be exchanged on their wedding night. Until then, "keep it wrapped." I smiled that the promise ring worn and also featured on the banners was a wide blood red band. Dawn falls for a boy which complicates her vow. Turns out, the young virgin has a set of choppers in her vagina, forcing her to question the veracity of compulsory chastity until marriage as well as the foundational myths of civilization saying that "the hero" has to conquer the teeth in her vadge.

One of the best early scenes sets up the film's larger social critique in a biology class where the male teacher has finished giving a lecture on the penis with large anatomical sketches in detail projected onto the wall. He hestitates before continuing in to the next segment on the vagina, almost choking on the word. When he gives the page number for them to follow along, we see the kids open to the female reproductive system, but on the opposing page a big gold sticker obscures the detailed sketch of the vulva. Student protests are shut down by the teacher's announcement that the state school board banned the drawing. This is not hard to believe in the climate of a shrub-induced willful ignorance masked as sexual education. You're not supposed to know anything about that dirty down there place 'cept it's where teh babies come from y'all.

It soon becomes clear to the viewer that writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein conflates the deep strains of misogyny in ancient civilizations with fundamentalist or evangelical modern American Christianity. Cultures which hate and fear women create various myths collapsing into toothsome pussies or hymen fetishes. In both instances, the same anxiety about women's sexual agency is at play, against which men devise elaborate narratives or codes of control.

It's hilarious as well as bloody. After watching many films within the horror genre of the last thirty years, all of which revel in using female flesh as a target to be hounded, hacked, and mutilated, this film is a standout.

Oh, hell yeah.