Jennifer's Body

I couldn't stand Juno. Let that be said. I think Jennifer's Body is far better. Juno was over-rated and boring and brought nothing to the table. This just needs to be said 1. so everyone knows I'm not a Diablo Cody fanboy and 2. because any reason to bash stuff I don't like is valid enough to bash it. On to the review.

This is the story of two teenage best friends, Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Mamma Mia’s Amanda Seyfried). They are like a real-life version of Betty and Veronica; Jennifer is brunette, sultry, and man-bait, whereas Needy is blonde, pretty, and always in her friend’s shadow. One night, they go out to a dingy bar, supposedly to hear a band. Jennifer flirts openly with lead singer/guitarist Nikolai (Adam Brody). During the band’s first song, the bar catches fire, killing several people. Needy and Jennifer escape, but then Jennifer makes the bad decision to get inside the satanic band’s van. When she rematerializes the next day, she’s turned into a succubus who preys on male peers.

The joke, of course, is that she’s always preyed on male peers. The difference is that now she voraciously eats their flesh. It takes a while for Needy to catch on to what’s happening, and even longer to figure out a plan to stop it. Despite having a boyfriend, she secretly harbors some repressed sexual feelings for her friend, making her capable of falling under Jennifer’s spell too.

I remember girls like Jennifer from high school. They seemed to have everyone in their pocket, knowing how to get what they wanted and how to make others respond to them in exceedingly positive manners. Those same girls also had a tendency to use boys and throw them away. It’s never blatantly hammed into you, but Jennifer’s Body is something of a metaphor for that skill (or, if you prefer, dark art). Imagine a version of Mean Girls produced in Hell, and you will have some sense of the film’s tone. It's Heathers meets Scream. 

Jennifer knows the power she has over others, who are awed by her looks and/or presence. She knows the power is not only over boys, but over Needy as well. When you stop and think about it, that’s a scary skill for a teenage girl to have. It’s perhaps not the carnage that is the scariest thing here; maybe it’s the casualness with which Jennifer unleashes it. Her savagery is the thing that makes her most fearsome. Becoming a succubus only frees the demon that was already inside of her.

The movie could have explored its intriguing ideas in even more depth, but the point is to not ever go that deep anyway. Jennifer’s Body is still a better-than-average horror movie, and considerably smarter too. Several moments are genuinely creepy. Other moments are darkly funny. Cody’s script - under the director of Karyn Kusama, who brings a top-notch visual style - manages to combine those things into something that is a lot of wicked fun. 

The message: inside every adolescent girl is a figurative man-eater waiting to be unleashed. And inside every teen boy is a desire to be feasted on by the hottest girl in school. You can agree with that sentiment or not, but it may just define adolescent sexuality. If nothing else, it makes for a hell-raising good time at the movies.

B+