There is one of those movies every year that attempts to push boundaries and turn stomachs. In 1966 it was Michelangelo Antonioni's scandalously nude Blowup. Twenty years later -- David Lynch's sexually assaulting Blue Velvet. Then David Cronenberg's car crash kinkiness in Crash. (Make sure your mother looks for the Crash directed by Paul Haggis!) 2007's most sexually provocative movie may well be Mitchell Lichtenstein's Teeth. An ominous poster featuring a quizzical young woman wearing a t-shirt that reads: Warning—Sex Changes Everything.

Despite the mild R rating that accompanies Teeth, the subject matter has had audiences crossing their legs in horror. The story follows pro-celibate high school student Dawn as she resists aggressive sexual behavior from the men in her life. Dawn has another problem -- one best described by the film's website: “A stranger to her own body, innocent Dawn discovers she has a toothed vagina...as she struggles to comprehend her anatomical uniqueness, Dawn experiences the pitfalls and the power of being a living example of the vagina dentata myth.”

Is it possible that a contemporary director has sunk even lower than Cronenberg and Lynch and brought the “artistic-porn” movie genre to new heights? The vagina dentata myth has existed for centuries in culture, literature, surrealistic art, and psychoanalysis. However, it has been many years since our current civilization has discussed the myth.

Writer and Director Mitchell Lichtenstein has an educated background, having graduated Yale School of Drama. His motivation in creating the outrageous black comedy slash horror film? Lichtenstein commented to Zoom in Online, “The narrative is always a hero must go out and conquer the woman--or tribe of women--that have this toothed vagina and become the hero…. I knew that I wanted to turn that around so that the hero would be the woman with the condition, and that she would never be conquered.” Lichtenstein further commented he wanted the film to be seen as a positive story and the condition as a sort of “superpower.”

Say what you will about the death of good taste in cinema, Teeth is garnering some positive attention. At Sundance Teeth took home a Special Jury Prize for lead actress Jess Weixler for a “a juicy and jaw-dropping performance” and a nomination for Mitchell Lichtenstein for the Grand Jury Prize. Many critics have rallied behind the film. Cinematical's Scott Weinberg commented, “Teeth is precisely the sort of genre movie that we need to see more of.”

Critical acclaim is all well and good but what about distribution—the determining factor between Teeth smiling upon opportunity or turning into cinematic dental calculus? Lionsgate and the Weinstein Company have scheduled a limited release for this month. As for the man who makes superheroes out of the most unlikely characters? Director Mitchell Lichtenstein is currently working on a film adaptation of "A Charmed Life" and another film entitled Happy Tears which is a family comedy. It's easy to set your sights higher when you're all the way down.