Jennifer’s Body review
Beware of spoilers for Jennifer's Body.
My friend and I always discuss how horror films today lack so much, heart mostly, because they now rely on a lot of torture porn, cheap thrills, and sudden scares. We often talk about how we wished, in a way, that we grew up in the 80s so we could have been apart of not only great horror flicks but in my case science fiction films - movies in general. Both genres were subject to a golden age of B movie level, cult created films that are loved and viewed by fans all the time. The term "B movie", however, held a different meaning back then - basically, the best I can explain it, a low budget genre film that's fun, has a good script and an entertaining cast. A good movie but at a low budget. Today, "B movie" usually just stands for a bad movie.
In her second film, Academy award winner Diablo Cody writes a screenplay that attempts to recapture that 80s feel of dark comedies in this new film Jennifer's Body. I've been looking forward to seeing this for months, maybe even the past year, whenever it was announced Megan Fox would be starring. Yes folks, Megan Fox was my draw to this film. So was Diablo Cody, given that I loved Juno - I'd hoped she could bring that screenwriting flare to this film. Did she? More on that below. Jennifer's Body premiered two weeks ago; I saw it this past Saturday; now I'm finally posting the review after putting it off for other things I had to do.
As someone like myself that tries to keep an open mind about a film when watching it, I went into Jennifer's Body with no expectations. I hoped it would be good but I was also well aware that it could be terrible. Sadly, however, a lot of movie goers went in already pre-judging Jennifer's Body as a terrible movie for two reasons; Megan Fox and Diablo Cody. They believe Megan Fox is a terrible actress and everything that she does will turn a film into crap. Their reasons usually lead back to her performance in Transformers, ... which is ridiculous because any logical person knows that Transformers isn't the place to become a thesp. It's a place to scream and avoid being blown to bits by Michael Bay. Even in that she wasn't all that bad - the first film she was alright at best and the second she seemed a little better. The reality of it is, Megan Fox may be a big star already but she's at the very beginning of her career. Just look at her IMDB profile on feature films (major releases) - there is nothing on it except Transformers, Jennifer's Body and another film with Simon Pegg that wasn't good, granted that was only a supporting role. Even still, people unfairly give her a "terrible actress" title and say she's only good for eye candy. As for Diablo Cody, folks just hated her dialog from Juno - it doesn't matter that she won an Oscar for it. Go figure. With that in mind, I still have to judge Jennifer's Body fairly. Megan Fox could be awful in this movie and Diablo Cody could've written a terrible movie. My thoughts on this film will explain if that's so.
"Demon possession, devilish cheerleaders, and Satanic rock stars are all on the chopping block with this horror comedy from the production team behind Juno. Screenwriter Diablo Cody provides the script, with producing duties handled by Jason Reitman and Dan Dubiecki. The story centers on an impish high-school student (Amanda Seyfried) who has to protect her town against her best friend, Jennifer (Megan Fox), who after being bedeviled by an evil rock band, develops a taste for human flesh. Girlfight's Karyn Kusama directs the Fox Atomic production." [Fandango]
If your thinking about seeing Jennifer's Body in theaters, here's a tip; either go with a large group of friends that love B level movies or wait until it comes out on DVD and add it to your fun Halloween movies for next year. Don't see it alone like I did because you'll end up just seeing all the flaws this movie throws in your face. No, that doesn't mean Jennifer's Body is a bad movie, it just means it only works in certain conditions.
The end result of Jennifer's Body can only be blamed on two people; sadly, Diablo Cody's script and the director Karyn Kusama. No, not Megan Fox, in fact she did exactly what she needed to do to fulfill her role. Although I hoped the opposite would happen, Diablo Cody's script and fancy dialog is in fact not very good. All of that snazzy talk Juno had simply doesn't work in this film for two reasons; A) it's forced and thrown in your face as if someone said "Look, Diablo's fancy words!" and B) the lines of dialog were honestly stupid and unfunny. In this case, it seems haters of Diablo have extra ammo as this film indeed falls on its face whenever any actor speaks. If it wasn't for the actors, including Megan Fox, this film would be a lot worse than it ended up being. There is absolutely no way you can blame any actor for their delivery of lines. If your working with shit, your gonna smell like shit and that's what happens here. The dialog is so obviously forced, at least to someone who's seen Juno and knows how the dialog worked in that film, but what makes things worse is that the dialog suggests teen high school cliche's as if Cody believes this is how teens talk. It's been several years since I've been a teenager but I think I can safely say that they don't talk the way they do in this film. There is redemption to the dialog, however. Granted the actors had to deliver cliche, annoying, and ridiculous lines of dialog, their overall performances, to emote their characters, were very good. Yes, Megan Fox emotes in this film and gives me hope that she has the ability to improve as she continues her young career and guess what, Roger Ebert agrees! I especially enjoyed the first scene in which she appears as an obvious demon; she shows up into Needy's (Seyfried) home and gives us this really creepy smile then continues to get even more creepy by doing strange shit like puking up black stuff and screaming Evil Dead style. To me, it's the coolest scene of the film. She continued a fine performance throughout the film that I enjoyed but I don't want to give it all away. Amanda Seyfried is also very good in Jennifer's Body granted I don't buy her as the nerdy type with glasses - another teen cliche. Both Fox and Seyfried play off of each other well enough for me to enjoy their overall performances with Seyfried getting pretty bad ass at the end of the film.
The director, Karyn Kusama, to put it simply, had no idea where she was going with all of this. A lot of the film seemed like going through steps; steps without showing the audience to where they actually lead. A lot of the emotions between Fox's and Seyfried's characters don't seem to mesh, not because of performance but because of direction - I can't tell if they're lesbians with a hardcore sexual frustration or if they hate each other and are only fooling themselves. Take note, their characters are suppose to be best friends. What kills me the most is how Kusama seemed afraid to take the R-rating and actually go for it. The only reason Jennifer's Body is rated R is because of the language - not the gore and not any nudity. Nudity, however, isn't important. Sure, we'd all like to see Fox and Seyfried in the buff but the film doesn't call for it so whatever. The gore, ... what the hell!!! All we got to see is Fox covered in blood, drinking blood, and some cool teeth make-up which you see here. The film doesn't show us one bit of demon Jennifer eating and destroying flesh except in wall shadows. It's ridiculous and I say shame on you Kusama! I don't care that this film is considered more of a comedy but so was Evil Dead - this, with its horror elements, isn't capitalized on and it's unfortunate.
With what's given in Jennifer's Body, I can still say that it proves to be an entertaining film overall. The major problems of it might drag the film down but not far enough for me to say "don't see it" to you folks. There's still a chance you might have fun with it but as I mentioned in the article already, Jennifer's Body shouldn't be seen alone - this is definitely a group picture involving your own personal commentary with friends. Jennifer's Body will have plenty of haters from those looking to further scorn Diablo Cody and Megan Fox but in the end result of this film, I say one out of two is pretty good and I'm personally glad Megan Fox is the winner in that contest. Cody will still have plenty of work and her television series, The United States of Tara, seems to be doing very well for itself. Fox still has plenty of work ahead with Jonah Hex starring Josh Brolin and John Malkovich, and also Passion Play starring Mickey Rourke. Fox, actually, explained a little from Passion Play during an interview with Regis and Kelly. Jennifer's Body isn't a complete failure but it also isn't a great movie. Given today's standards of films, I think Jennifer's Body would end up on today's list of fun B-level films but it doesn't hold the charm as an 80s film would. Even still, I'd like to see it again. On a scale of one to ten, Jennifer's Body scores a 5.5 out of 10 and I think that's a fair score.
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Yeah, I basically agree with nearly everything you said. Everything in the film felt a beat off, and it seemed to be the Director’s fault, not the writer’s. It was fun, I enjoyed seeing it and I can’t honestly say it sucked, but it was not good enough to own and I probably won’t rent it.
People hurry up and check out Night of the Demons, before the remake comes out next year. Sounds like this Jennifer’s Body is ripping it off. By the way- good work on defining B movies of the 80’s. Those days are long gone.
@Devil - If you like the 80’s scary movies, stay tuned this weekend! I’m springing a new article on how Horror movies used to be, vs what they’ve become. Should be a headliner this weekend
Evil dead is much better than that movie.
It’s a shame that horror movies are not like what they’re used to be.
I love Sam Raimi’s work, evil dead, evil dead 2 darkman
I think a the modern horror needs to go back to its roots. well if you call horror these days.
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