Jennifer's Body (2009)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fantastic!

A different way of telling a story

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Writer Diablo Cody won an Oscar for her screenplay for Juno. She becomes unstuck with Jennifer's Body as the film is unsure whether it wants to be a horror, a parody or a dark comedy about high school kids.Jennifer's Body was probably only green-lit with Megan Fox attached as the lead. She certainly has the face and the body but not necessarily the acting ability as the hot high school cheerleader who all the boys fancy.After an encounter with a rock band with satanic undertones at a gig where the place burns down in a fire, Jennifer has been transformed into a succubus who has to devour flesh. Her gawky geeky friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried) thinks that Jennifer is involved somehow with students turning up dead and reckons her boyfriend (Johnny Simmons) could be in danger.The film really wants to be a modern hip Carrie but director Karyn Kusama does not have the elan of Brian De Palma and the script is not good enough.

In "Jennifer's Body" Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried play "Best Friends Forever" who, we are told, have absolutely nothing in common. I know what you're thinking. Surely Megan and Amanda have one thing in common- they're both absolutely gorgeous. But not in this film. Admittedly, Megan's character Jennifer is gorgeous, but Amanda is supposed to be plain, dowdy and nerdish. As if! The Best Friends Forever are the beautiful Jennifer Check and the plain, dowdy and nerdish Anita Lesnicki, classmates at a high school near Devil's Kettle, Minnesota. Anita is generally known by the nickname "Needy"; this might just about be phonetically plausible, given that most Americans would pronounce "Anita" as "Aneeda", but the name was obviously chosen to reflect Anita's personality. (She is "needy" in the American sense of "emotionally demanding", not the British one of "financially impoverished"). One night the two girls are attending a concert given by a rock group in a local bar when fire breaks out and several people are killed. Both girls escape unharmed, but immediately afterwards Jennifer disappears with the members of the band, who have also escaped. Soon afterwards, Needy realises that her friend's personality has changed, and not for the better. Even before the fire, Jennifer could be spoilt, selfish and bitchy, but now she's positively evil. That's not evil as in "stealing other girls' boyfriends". That's evil as in "murdering boys in order to drink their blood". Needy also realises that she is the only one who can bring Jennifer's reign of terror to an end, preferably before Needy's own boyfriend Chip becomes the next victim. The exact reason behind Jennifer's personality change would be too complicated, as well as too absurd, to set out here, but it is connected to two interesting facts we learn in the course of the film:-1.It is hard to succeed in the indie rock world these days unless you sell your soul to the Devil. Literally. 2. If you ever need to sacrifice a virgin to Satan, it pays to make sure your chosen victim really is virgo intacta. Trying to sacrifice a non-virgin can have all sorts of unfortunate consequences. The film relies on a lot of the standard high schools movie stereotypes; the students, for example, seem to be divided into four categories- attractive but spoilt and arrogant girls like Jennifer, equally arrogant but stupid "jocks" (inevitably male- no American teenage girl, apparently, ever takes an interest in sport except as a cheerleader), bespectacled, nerdish academics (of both sexes) and moody, emotional Goths (ditto). It does however occasionally depart from the standard clichés; Jennifer, for example, may be a cheerleader but is not dating any of the football team. (Or anyone else for that matter; she is too much of a slut to have a steady boyfriend). And she is never described as "most popular girl in the school"- the scriptwriter Diablo Cody (what an appropriate forename for the writer of a horror film) clearly realised that spoilt, arrogant girls, however attractive they may be, are seldom popular with their peers. Cody and director Karyn Kusama seem to have had high ambitions to make a feminist horror film. Cody, noting that many previous horror films had featured female characters mainly as the screaming victims of evil males, said she wanted the film to "speak to female empowerment and explore the complex relationships between best friends". I am not sure about "female empowerment"; there is a big difference between "being empowered" and "slaughtering people", and the idea of the beautiful woman as bloodsucking succubus has less to do with feminism than with some ugly male prejudices about female sexuality. As for "complex relationships between best friends", Cody's idea of "complexity" is to have some fairly obvious lesbian subtext spill over in one scene into full-blown lesbian text. Well, at least that should keep the lads-mag brigade happy. (This was one of two films from 2009, the other being "Chloe", in which Amanda Seyfried played a bisexual character). The film was obviously influenced by "Heathers" from 1988 (possibly the best satirical high-school comedy), but lacks that film's depth and satirical bite. Despite the gap between the film-makers' expressed intentions and their actual achievement, "Jennifer's Body" is not altogether a bad movie. As I said, the plot of is absurd beyond words, but then it is meant to be a black comedy, and supernatural horror high school black comedies are not a film genre known for strict realism or plausibility.. Both the leading actresses, especially the lovely Megan, throw themselves into their roles with enthusiasm, and there is some sharp dialogue, even some social comment about the modern tendency to sentimentalise tragedies and the way in which the rock band are able to bask in some wholly undeserved praise for their supposed heroism on the night of the fire. If it is nonsense, at least it is reasonably enjoyable nonsense. 5/10

Doing research on Wikipedia today, I stumbled across the history of the Golden Raspberry awards and took a peek to see how many of the movies in my DVD collection and how many of my favorite actresses were so gloriously discredited. Lo and behold, there was tonight's DVD screening at ElectricLadyLand, Megan Fox nominated for JENNIFER'S BODY. I had up till then only seen the downloaded trailer, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Anyway, I do not collect Oscar-winning movies and I do not enthuse about serious actresses, I, being RavrnGlamDVDCollector, am on about cute stuff, young, likable, really, really cute starlets. So who cares? Well, me, actually! The movie might suffer! So I had a little bit of foreboding at the back of my head, but bravely settled in with my snack and... Well, wow, what were they thinking? Tell me what the hell was wrong with Megan Fox? I should tie you to a chair and get at it with a pair of pliers :) only kidding! while you tell me what was wrong with Megan Fox. For you know what was wrong with Megan Fox? Megan Fox is ***king beautiful and you can't have her and you are oh-so-sour- grapes about that and you gotta do something about it SPOILSPORT THAT YOU ARE and you have to take a dump on the poor kid and saddle her with a bleep- bleep-bleep effing Razzle award. Well, take your Razzle award and...:)The part of Jennifer calls for an extremely confident girl who just knows she is the pooh, the hottest pooh on two long legs. A girl who can, because of this, act in the smoothest coolest unattainable way, a killer in the sexual stakes. Megan Fox was 100% what the role required. She did it 100% effectively flawlessly gracefully beautifully WOW YES or in the spirit of the poster, HELL YES!!Megan Fox, some lousy old dudes with nothing better to do did you a nasty disservice. I am also a lousy old dude, but I am fair (and smitten with your foxy face) and with every inch of me (ooh-ah-er, I didn't mean it like that) I am undoing your Razzle nomination. I have a good mind to go and wipe it off Wikipedia as I am a frequent editor there HEY ONLY KIDDING WIKIPEDIA! but......okay, getting back to the real world now after some fun and after having officials at IMDb and Wikipedia really worried, Isn't It True? There is a whole lot of unfair treatment for pretty newcomers. An impulse to tar and feather them. By all means, if the charge would stick, YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO DO SO! But be fair! In this case, objectively seen, even if I look at her performance while forcing myself not to favor her in any way, I cannot fault her. Please, forget about the weird creepy Jennifer Check character, I am talking about the starlet Megan Fox.Okay, after all this, I'm sure Megan will come out and play now?

Jennifer's Body (2009): Dir: Karyn Kusama / Cast: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, J.K. Simmons, Amy Sedaris: Here is an interesting take on vampires that may remind viewers on the puberty reference in the werewolf film Ginger Snaps. Title regards infatuation as well as the male student body in which Jennifer feeds upon. She is a cheerleader who was a sacrifice to Satan by a struggling rock band. When she resurfaces she has vampire powers and feeds on the blood of males in order to retain her youth. Well written although third act is the standard face off. Directed by Karyn Kusama with ominous production visuals. Megan Fox is enchanting as Jennifer going from seductive cheerleader to vicious vampire. Amanda Seyfried plays her long time best friend who loses Jennifer at a concert only to have her resurface drenched in blood. She plays a great counterpart to Fox since both have very different backgrounds in film. We can expect a cat fight between the two as well as revenge on the cult band. Johnny Simmons plays Seyfried's boyfriend who becomes a target for Jennifer until Seyfried cuts in. Unfortunately this subplot ends on a sour note. Only J.K. Simmons as a professor is underused, which is unfortunate since he has been known as a scene stealer in past movies. Graphic and steamy horror entertainment recommended to vampire fans. Score: 5 ½ / 10