Super chaste high school student Dawn has always kept her principals, despite receiving a lot of attention by the male students.
A stranger to her own body, she soon realises that there is something
very different with her – she has a set of teeth where she shouldn't.

While at first she sees the gnashers as a horrific deformity, Dawn soon realises that they could be an effective deterrent to unwanted advances, and a way of exacting revenge on anyone who wrongs her.
So when her school mates start trying to take advantage of the pretty blonde, they soon find Dawn's bite is worse than her bark.

Although Teeth's premise is undoubtedly shocking, it is not really an original concept for movies (or indeed folklore); with Japanese cinema notorious for making similar productions.

More a re-imagining than a remake, this Hollywood offering mixes in a hefty dose of video revenge nasties like I Spit On Your Grave.

But with a host of movies to drawn inspiration from, director and writer Mitchell Lichtenstein fails to settle on what genre the film should fall into.
Depending on the tone, Teeth could have easily been made into a straight dramatic thriller or a full on black-comedy.
And after the opening scene, the clear style and middle-America setting
suggests it falls into the former.

But Lichenstein's inability to carry it on for a mere 88 minutes - as
well as an over-ambitious family backstory - is shown in numerous script hiccups and pace problems.
To then overlay a clunky score by Robert Miller, and prepare for plenty
of unintended laugh out loud moments.

The cast mostly succeed in legitimizing the plot, with Jess Weixler putting in a convincing turn as the troubled Dawn and Josh Hensley ably portraying her bad boy stepbrother Brad.
But missed opportunities and under developed characters gives only those two actors anything to really work with.

Teeth relies too much on the psychoanalytical aspect of film to act as a cautionary tale of fidelity and virginity, rather than a constructive
plot; putting all the emphasis on Dawn and her next victim rather than consequences of her actions.
Never actually managing to create tension, it is all about wincing and grimacing at implied severings rather than being a genuine fright fest.

4/10 - A messy plot makes the film lack any real bite!