super Vagina and gory scenes of castration

Teeth could just be the most outrageous offering
at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Male viewers be warned: the film contains gory scenes of castration.

Jess Weixler, 26, -- plays the lead -- an alumnus of The Juilliard School,
won the Special Jury Prize for her "juicy and jaw-dropping performance" -
at the Sundance Film Festival 2007.

Weixler's heroine (Dawn) whose sexual awakening involves having to come
to terms with the shocking discovery that she has a toothed vagina,
or, as they say in Latin, vagina dentata.



"She wasn't a monster. She could have a good time having sex" -
only guys who upset her get their willies chopped -
"and there were a lot of things that made her really interesting.
And no one's ever done this before," Weixler grins.
"So I got to make up what vagina dentata would be like."

The guys who get a nasty surprise are ones who force themselves on Dawn
or humiliate her. A gynaecologist loses a number of fingers,
presumably because of her anxiety.
Dawn only gradually comes to terms with her sexuality and its power.
Initially, as a member of a Christian group dedicated to chastity
called The Promise, she preaches total abstinence before marriage.
Even masturbation is prohibited.

Director (and writer) Mitchell Lichtenstein says he first heard of the myth
of toothed vagina while studying literature.
Lichtenstein says:
"I also think there are statistics that [abstinence] groups don't delay sexual activity
for more than a few months on average, and when they do have sex
they're more likely not to use protection and they do get pregnant,
because they have less information."

There is, then, a serious side to the film, which Lichtenstein hopes will expose
the sheer ludicrousness and source - male fear of women -
of a taboo which is still very much alive in some places.



And Jess Weixler admits:

"I think sex is something not to be entirely shy about.
It's something to be private about, personally, but this is as a character
going through something completely different than me.
And it is funny. I'm not going to be, like, 'You can't joke about my character!'"

Teeth is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
more taboo scenes from dirty Europe