Entry #5: Jennifer's Body
When it comes to acclaimed horror movies getting initially negative reviews, well, to quote tom Jones, "It's not unusual." Films like George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead or Tobe Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre had plenty of notable detractors upon their very first theatrical releases before getting properly reevaluated in the years afterwards. What's especially strange about Jennifer's Body is how the initial reviews didn't just critique the film, they saw it as a vehicle to attack the films writer (Diablo Cody) and to ogle the films star (Megan Fox). As has been noted in a number of excellent pieces by now, the majority of negative Jennifer's Body reviews back in 2009 were all kinds of gross and misogynistic. It's utterly repulsive to see all these reviews passing for actual film criticism, though, thankfully, a broader array of voices have made themselves heard on the internet and ensured that Jennifer's Body is getting the re-evaluation it deserves.
Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) are inseparable best friends. They've been that way since Kindergarten and now that they're in High School together, they couldn't be closer. Their friendship gets tossed for a loop after a horrific incident involving a bar burning down, Jennifer going off with a band and then showing up at Needy's house to devour raw meat. The usual High School drama stuff. Anywho, now that series of gruesome murders have happened around town, Needy begins to suspect that not only could Jennifer be behind these slaughters, she might not be Jennifer anymore. Could a demon have possessed her best friend? That seems likely given that Jennifer is now devouring High School dudes to the point that they end up looking "like lasagna with teeth".
Diablo Cody's always had a particular style of wry dialogue that I've always found intriguing. It's a style full of very distinct phrases more interested in conveying emotions or characters rather than adhering to strict realism. This style of dialogue is particularly apt for teenage characters (like the leads in Juno) or protagonists trapped in a state of arrested development (Young Adult). Turns out, it's also quite fitting for a horror-comedy, the entertaining dialogue Cody pens for Jennifer and Needy as they navigate potential demon possession is laced with effective dark comedy. Anytime Jennifer expresses a dismissive attitude towards the people who perished in the local tavern fire, for instance, Cody fires up a doozy of a biting line that'll leave you gasping at just how humorously cold-hearted Jennifer can be.
Much like the best horror comedies such as Ready or Not or Little Shop of Horrors, Jennifer's Body uses comedy to get the viewer to laugh at some truly sadistic moments. But also like those two movies, and perhaps even moreso, Jennifer's Body also has a lot to offer on a character level. Diablo Cody's screenplay is already oodles of fun when it's just Megan Fox expressing dismissal for human life, but her script also makes for a thoughtful exploration of all the complexities of a friendship between two women in High School. The entire aspect of Jennifer getting possessed and that putting a barrier between herself and Needy is clearly supposed to be a stand-in for any number of circumstances that can drive a wedge between long-term chums in High School.
This sudden division in a long-standing relationship is handled with real insight on the part of writer Diablo Cody as well as director Karyn Kusama. Having already seen The Invitation and Destroyer, it was already clear to me that Karyn Kusama was a noteworthy filmmaker and her work on Jennifer's Body has increased my respect for her ten-fold. Nailing the tonal balance necessary for a horror/comedy is a tricky proposition, but Kusama handles it with impeccable style. She can swerve from flashy bits of dialogue-based comedy to intimidating gruesome murder scenes without missing a beat. Her sublime handling of the intimate character-driven moments of Jennifer's Body ensure that Cody's thoughtful screenwriting gets translated to the screen fully intact.
Kusama also gets to demonstrate the sort of nail-biting intensity she'd bring to The Invitation and Destroyer in a pivotal sequence showing Jennifer being sacrificed by members of the fictitious band Low Shoulder. It's an appropriately harrowing scene that has a movie making use of very heightened sources of horror pausing for a moment to dabble in a very realistic depiction of terror. These guys gleefully preparing and going through with slaughtering a woman just to achieve fame and fortune, it makes your skin crawl since it, just like the complex dynamic between Jennifer and Needy, feels ripped straight out of reality. In addition to the tonal work done by director Karyn Kusama, much of the disturbing nature of this scene is owed to the performance of Megan Fox.
As she rightfully observed a while back, Megan Fox got the short shrift as a performer, which is terrible for a myriad of reasons, including the fact that she shows off impressive chops in Jennifer's Body. This should have been the performance that launched her to mega-stardom, not something for male critics to slobber over in their reviews. The fact that they couldn't appreciate Fox's work here is their loss, though, Fox is all-around impressive in Jennifer's Body, especially in her depiction of the character changing from a normal High Schooler to someone whose possessed. Fox's body language and composure when she bursts into Needy's house looking for blood-drenched meat to consume, it's like something from a whole other person compared to Fox's de facto body language as normal Jennifer. Megan Fox knocks it out of the park with her performance in Jennifer's Body, a movie that totally impresses in so many ways. If you haven't seen this cult classic yet, do so. Where else can you see J.K. Simmons urging High School students to stop talking about "Whose cool and whose a ho"?
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