She’s evil… and not just high school evil.
Directed by Karyn Kusama
Reviewed by the Devil Himself – Deep Red
OK, well I’d heard the name Megan Fox but I wouldn’t have recognised her if we’d been stuck in a lift together and she’d farted in my direction and looking at the films she’s been in I’m not surprised. However, I’d had my beady one on this for a while. They took the title from the “Hole” song “Jennifer’s Body” which I am familiar with (and love – no pun intended) and that was pretty much all the reasons I needed to give it a day in court. I skimmed my way through a few reviews earlier and came up none the wiser except for some vague notion that I was either going to hate it or think it was OK, probably the former. Had me worried so I stuck it on.
A great bit of trivia for giallo fans out there. At one point one of the character’s says, “What are those strange drops of blood doing on Jennifer’s body?” Recognise? What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer’s Body? is the alternate title of a giallo aka The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972). Love the reference. Orgasmic!
OK, well Anita “Needy” Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) are BFFs. Basically, Needy is nerdy and Jennifer is a popular cheerleader who’s not even a backdoor virgin anymore, good to know! They go to see a band at a bar, Jennifer’s got the hots for the lead singer Nikolai (Adam Brody). Anyway, the band’s crap, just my personal opinion not an aspect of the film, and a fire breaks out and Jennifer ends up leaving with the band in their van. Jennifer shows up later at Needy’s house covered in blood. She proceeds to raid Needy’s fridge, throws up some horrible black stuff on Needy’s floor, and on nerdy Needy, and then leaves.
Jennifer shows up at school looking fine the next day but then seduces football jock Jonas Kozelle (Josh Emerson) in some nearby woods. Things quickly turn nasty for Jonas and not in a nice kinky cheerleader way, Jennifer attacks him in front of small woodland creatures and everything!
OK, I think that’s enough about the plot. What this is is black comedy and horror combined, it’s very well-made and looks superb on Blu-ray. I was dreading some kind of lousy teen horror thing but this one’s pretty quality. None of the cast are that great, J.K. Simmons was good as teacher Mr. Wroblewski, and the dialogue is littered with hit-and-miss teen-isms but there’s enough of a horror film going on to save it, just. There is a bit too much how’s your father though, drags a bit in places. The plot is pretty silly but they just manage to pull it off, mostly thanks to the black comedy and how great the film looks.
The music/songs didn’t do a lot for me but they weren’t intolerable. They didn’t include “Jennifer’s Body” by “Hole”, the film’s namesake, but they did include “Violet”, brilliant.
The special effects are good but there just aren’t enough moments of gore or killing, again just decent cinematography but so much dialogue.
I’ve seen far, far worse films but Jennifer’s Body didn’t really do it for me. As I said at the beginning of this review I originally thought I was either going to hate it or think it was OK, turns out I thought it was OK, and then a little bit.
Kyle Gallner stars as emo Colin Gray. I liked him in The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) but he doesn’t really get much to do here. And Chip played by Johnny Simmons, not good.
Don’t expect Gandhi. It’s fun. Which Gandhi wasn’t. Check it out!
