What’s wrong with enjoying a campy teenage horror flick these days? Jennifer’s Body is the bastard child of great ’80s fare like Evil Dead, Night of the Creeps and The Howling and it’s a refreshing addition to all the sequels and remakes we’ve seen in the horror genre this year.
Megan Fox plays Jennifer – a hot cheerleader who finds herself possessed after an indie band (fronted by Adam Brody) performs a ritual on her on order to get famous. After Jennifer is possessed she must feed on people (mainly boys) to survive. If she doesn’t she has to bear the consequences of looking like crap and being grouchy.
Her best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried) suspects something is up after Jennifer pays a late night visit to her covered in blood and is vomiting black goo that turns into needles. As the bodies pile higher no one believes Needy that it’s Jennifer doing the killing (not even her loyal boyfriend Chip) and Jennifer is not too happy her best friend is turning on her.
Campy enough for you?
Written by Diablo Cody, the film is full of the hipster dialogue that won her an Oscar for Juno (Juno director Jason Reitman is also a producer on this). It’s also got a too-cool indie rock soundtrack like Juno. That’s about all the comparisons to Juno one can find. Director Karyn Kusama (who wrote and directed the excellent film Girlfight back in 2000) takes Jennifer’s Body to a level most male directors would be scared to and plays up the whole “being a teenage girl is hell” aspect.
Blending Cody’s and Kusama’s artistic styles in a cheesy horror film lets them have fun, and fun is the best way to describe Jennifer’s Body. I’m sure they won’t stay in this genre long and they will be going on to making award-winning films again next year.
Although the film proves Fox can actually act (don’t worry guys, she does show off her midriff just as much as she did in Transformers) it’s Seyfried who blew me away as Needy. She’s tough, smart and cute and Seyfried handles her perfectly. Johnny Simmons’s portrayal of Chip is very reminiscent of Sean Astin in The Goonies and Adam Brody as Nikolai, the lead singer of of the band Low Shoulder, is spot-on to almost every indie rock band playing today.
Jennifer’s Body might not be groundbreaking but if you go in looking for a good time you will not be disappointed.
*** out of 5 stars
Source: City TV