Monday, September 28, 2009

Thoughts on Jennifer's Body


The movie ya pervs! So yeah, I know, ANOTHER teen horror flick. And yeah, I know, it has Megan Fox in it, who is probably the single worst person getting paid to be in movies since Nicolas Cage soiled his first film cell (oh yeah, I said it). But it's written by Diablo Cody, and well the fact that she was responsible for Juno should almost dictate that Jennifer's Body is worth at least 90 minutes of your life.

In case you've been living under a rock, or your Anit-Fox instinct is so strong that it's prevented you from hearing anything about this one, here's your basic plot breakdown: Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried!!!) are BFF's, and have been since they were little girls. This is your typical in movie-land only relationship between the popular, bitchy ice queen cheerleader and the almost non-existant, nerdy, artsy girl. One night Jennifer drags Needy out to a bar to see a band she finds on MySpace (UGH), and a fire breaks out during the performance, killing some of their classmates and other random people there. Needy and Jennifer escape through a bathroom window, and are met outside by the band, who Jennifer was all over inside before the fire.



Despite Needy's protest, they talk Jennifer into getting into their van, and drive off. When she finds her way back to Needy's house later that night, she's covered in blood, and all sorts of weird shit starts going down. Turns out that the band had come across some ritual on the internet (UGH again) that would grant them fortune and fame, and all they needed to do was recite a chant and sacrifice a virgin. Unfortunately they picked the wrong girl. How they didn't realize this is beyond me, Jennifer's obviously about as close to being a virgin as Megan Fox is in real life, in fact she informs us at one point during the movie that she's "not even a back door virgin anymore" which made me laugh.



So here's the thing about sacrificing a non-virgin, the body apparently doesn't die, and a Demonic Transference takes place. So Jennifer is posessed by a demon, and in order to maintain her strength, she feeds on teenage boys, which I'm sure isn't too far off from what Megan Fox actually does on a daily basis when she isn't being the worst actress in the world. Of course Needy would eventually figure out what happened to Jennifer and decides she must stop her, but only after they make out for a while... I'll say that again, they make out for a while. Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried totally make out. Like tongues and everything.



Ok, now that you're back, was I right or was I right? Ahem. Anyway, back to the movie. I purposely avoided any reviews on this one before seeing it, as the internet is full of people who enjoy hating absolutely everything in the world, and I wanted to form my own opinion without any direct or indirect influence. And I may get shunned for saying this, but I enjoyed the movie. Sure, the body count was low, and what did happen generally happened off-screen but I was expecting both of those things. There were some cringe-worthy moments, especially in the dialog department, but Cody was writing teenage girls here and I guess that was the point. I was a bit disappointed that what probably would've been the best scene of the movie (other than the make out scene) was shown only in crime scene photos as the credits rolled. Oh, and keep your eyes open for a Lance Henriksen cameo!

Overall, I'd give this movie a C+, and if anybody other than Megan Fox had been Jennifer, probably bump that to a B-. I'm not really sure what Diablo Cody was going for here, by dipping her toe in the horror pool, and while she manages to write and produce an entertaining movie, I definitely think that drama/dark humor is her stronger suit. But definitely give it a watch, and don't worry about horror snobs turning their noses up to you. You've got a friend in me.

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