The Horror Collective’s 30 Day Lockdown Challenge
Day 15: Female Director
Movie Review: Jennifer’s Body
Director: Diablo Cody
Production Company: Fox Atomic/Dune Entertainment
Country: USA
Year: 2009
Largely considered a modern teen horror cult classic, Jennifer’s Body revolves around the friendship of school-idol Jennifer (Megan Fox) and geeky Needy (Amanda Seyfried). When Jennifer is sacrificed by satanists and winds up a succubus, Needy must stop her friend from devouring the school’s male alumni, including her boyfriend Chip. Decent acting and a fun premise, it has a lot of elements that a sleek modern American horror movie seems to require, but never actually manages to capitalise on any of them.
The acting is decent, I’ll give it that. Fox and Seyfried give performances which nobody could really complain about. Everyone else does well also, and though some of the goth kids go slightly overboard, they’re meant to be stereotypical comic relief, so who’s going to pick holes at acting which is meant to be overdone to a certain extent?
There are also one or two moments of decent gore. The body being found in the woods, a deer picking at it’s insides, is great and bloody. There’s also a kill by candlelight midway through the film, all done in silhouette, which genuinely looks great. It’s nicely contrasted by intercutting to a sex scene, amplifying the erotic element of the violence without having to explicitly either.
But then, there are issues with the movie. There’s an overreliance on slow motion at times, the comedy doesn’t land every time it should, and there are parts where the violence should be more visceral than it is. And I don’t think there’s a single character which I genuinely loved in any way. Even the main two were just sort of there, doing nothing much to actually get me feeling any kind of emotion for them. I don’t know why, as I’ve connected with characters with far less effort put into them, but they felt incredibly stylised, purely there to serve the narrative. It’s a fine line, and incredibly tricky to pull off, and it’s not to say that I hated either the characters or the performers, just that they felt a little empty. Sometimes even cringey. Again, couldn’t put my finger on why, but I call it as I see it. Slick lines don’t equal character; they just mean a script’s been re-drafted.
The movie tries to have fun, and has some good points to it, but there’s nothing overwhelmingly incredible about it. Every aspect has times which are great, and then also not as good simultaneously. Characters are fun, and yet hollow. Directing is competent, and then clichéd. Violence is visceral, and then incredibly bland fifteen minutes later. I didn’t hate the film, but it’s incredibly ‘meh’ and average. If I want to re-watch a ‘two teen girls where the hot one becomes a monster in disguise and kills high school students and the other dorky one has to take them down’ movie, I’ll go put on Ginger Snaps.
-Rating: 5/10
-Review by Kieran Judge
-Twitter: @KJudgeMental
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