Though it made its premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s film “Teeth” has waited an entire year to get a theatrical release. Which is nothing extraordinary, except that Mr. Lichtenstein’s satirical coming-of-age flick about a Christian schoolgirl with a very special physical attribute arrives after a wave of movies devoted to themes of pregnancy and/or abortion: See “Knocked Up,” “Juno,” and “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.”

Of course, in the case of Mr. Lichtenstein’s plucky, verbally astute heroine, Dawn (Jess Weixler), the potential for being impregnated with an unwanted child is very low. That’s because she’s the world’s first legitimately documented case of vagina dentata (if you aren’t familiar with this term, the film will sear it on your brain). The situation, though embarrassing at first, offers a window into Dawn’s evolving sexuality, even as it decimates the local (and mostly unsympathetic) male populace. Dawn’s boyfriend is getting a little aggressive, and her bad brother is the poster child for immoral teenage conduct.

“I just thought the myth was fruitful for exploration in a more direct way,” the 51-year-old director said. The onetime actor (“Streamers”) and son of the Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, wrote, directed, and produced “Teeth” using private equity and his own checkbook. As it turned out, prospective financers, even in the independent film world, did not share Mr. Lichtenstein’s obsession. “The more directly you approach it, it’s clear that the fascination with it is a male thing and not a female one.”

Indeed, Ms. Weixler, 26, who won the jury acting prize at Sundance, was “totally freaked out” after she read the script. “I wasn’t necessarily into it, and not out of it, just not sure if it was going to be some horrible B-horror movie,” she said, sharing a recent conversation with her director at the Regency Hotel near Central Park. “And then I met Mitchell, and realized that he was smart … enough.” She laughed, and Mr. Lichtenstein seemed to contemplate an affectionate joust. “It’s more like a dark comedy than a horror film. It’s fantastical. There’s no road carved for it yet. There are no other vagina dentata movies.”

But making the first one (at least to attract mainstream attention), Ms. Weixler said, quickly became a delight.

“I was really terrified of taking this role at first, because forever you’re going to be the ‘toothy vagina girl,’ and now I couldn’t be more thrilled I got to play this part, now it seems so cool,” she said. “She’s a superhero character, a culty figure, someone who knows how to take care of herself. She’s an avenging angel, but she’s not malicious. She just has this anatomical uniqueness. It was an actor’s dream.”

Mention the “Alien” films, with their H.R. Giger-designed interstellar monster mamas, and Mr. Lichtenstein jumps right in.

“That’s one of the main movies that was often described as a vagina dentata metaphor,” he said, “a female monster with teeth, and locations that were warm, moist tunnels.”

The real monster in “Teeth,” as in so many 1950s horror movies (“I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” and so on) is adolescent sexuality. Ms. Weixler’s Dawn is a repressed good girl who presides over her high school’s chastity club. But as she gradually yields to her growing desires, she makes the terrifying discovery that will eventually become as much a blessing as a curse. Thoughtfully, even as the film plays to moments of gross-out, low-budget gore, it also aspires to social commentary.

Ms. Weixler can relate.

“I did go through a phase where I discovered what I liked and what I didn’t like, and what I feel good about and what I’m still insecure about,” she said. “It’s important if women can find themselves sexy without thinking of themselves as objects and are able to take ownership of their body instead of constantly trying to appeal to what someone else thinks is sexy.”