FrogGlace
In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
filippaberry84
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Myron Clemons
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW)
There are horror films that are bold and in your face. And there's "Jennifer's Body". This movie is downright odd. There plenty of blood, violence, and language. Great star power like Megan Fox, the hottie who plays Jennifer. Amanda Seyfried, the hottie who plays "Needy" who is not very hot. Amy Sedaris, well-known for "Strangers With Candy" plays Needy's mother. J.K. Simmons plays the teacher. And Johnny Simmons who plays Chip, Needy's boyfriend.
The town is quiet and uneventful. Until one night, a fire breaks out at a tavern killing some people. While the town mourns the people who went to the school, another tragedy rocks the town. Instead of a fire, it was a murder of the football captain. The suspect of the murders is Jennifer. Normally, she looks incapable of such acts. However, she became more dangerous after her encounter with a band she has been following. She was a victim of a ritual that makes her into a succubus, a demon that feeds on human flesh.
This movie is like more sexual than horror. Too many puns and slapsticks, not enough horror to make it exciting.
Rating 2 out of 5 stars
MaximumMadness
As a follow-up to her breakout hit "Juno", the 2009 horror-comedy "Jennifer's Body" seemed like a logical and yet bold move for writer Diablo Cody. Something very different that would allow her to stretch her creative chops and show that she could work in other genres, while still maintaining her quirky style and clever dialogue. And indeed, it seems that from a writing perspective, Cody did a pretty good job. Though the film was much-maligned by both critics and audiences, it's clearly not the fault of the script. Scenes flow well, characters are instantly established and the dialogue is snappy and memorable.No, the big problem here is uneven and oft-unimaginative direction and a lack of tonal focus. It takes what could have easily been a fun, wild satire along the lines of "Ginger Snaps" or "The Cabin in the Woods", and leaves it feeling dull and bland all too often, with only the occasional fleeting glimpse of brilliance.Amanda Seyfried stars as "Needy", a classic bookish High School girl whose best friend Jennifer (Megan Fox) is the shining example of a typical shallow preppy chick. She cares about boys and fashion more than her own basic well-being or future, and her penchant for rash decisions leads her into trouble more often than not. When the two manage to escape a mysterious fire one night at a night-club, Jennifer vanishes with the lead-singer of a lousy rock-band, only to re-emerge a different person. She's been changed, now meaner and wilder than ever before... and with a thirst for young blood! Needy quickly realizes that her friend has been possessed by a demonic force courtesy a satanic ritual, and must figure out a way to stop her before she kills off the entire school!To start, I actually really enjoyed the cast. While Fox has been the subject of scrutiny as of late due to her mainly being cast for her looks moreso than her abilities, I think she's quite good as the titular "villain" that is the demonically-possessed Jennifer. It's a character that plays to her seductive strengths, and she nails it. Seyfried is also quite charming and fun as our heroine Needy, with a pathos and vulnerability that I enjoyed. And J.K. Simmons, Johnny Simmons and Adam Brody round out the supporting cast in very good performances. Especially J.K. Simmons, who shines as a troubled teacher despite a somewhat limited amount of screentime.And, as I mentioned above, the writing is fairly well-accomplished. Cody is a genuine talent, and her skills are on full display here for the open minded to see. Her sense of pacing is smooth and fluid. Her ear for dialogue is fantastic. And she has a lot of playful fun with conventions and tropes, both using and subverting them when she sees fit. It really is a great concept, and from a technical writing standpoint, Cody does well with the material.Unfortunately, the direction of Karyn Kusama is what essentially tanks the entire project, despite the fun writing and gung-ho cast. While Kusama has subsequently made some really high quality films in the years since, this was unfortunately relatively early in her career- a period of time where her work was extremely hit-or-miss. Either really good... or really, really bad. And this was one of the misses. Kusama frankly seems lost behind the camera, unsure of how to juggle the comedy and the creepiness and how to deliver the tone that Cody's script is going for. So she just sort-of... lets it play out in the blandest of ways. The lighting is flat. The camerawork is standard. Composition is basic. It's not bold or imaginative or really even all that interesting to watch. And it just brings down the energy constantly because neither the jokes nor the scares land with much impact, outside of one or two somewhat inspired moments. And it has the unfortunate effect of making the two tones feel near non-existent. There's no real focus on tone, style or... frankly much of anything. The direction just makes the whole film fall flat on its face.Thankfully, I don't think the film is a total loss. As I said, it's exceptionally well-written and the cast does a great job with the material. But it had so much more potential. And it's genuinely sad to see that potential go unfulfilled due to lackluster direction. So, I'm giving "Jennifer's Body" a very middle-of-the-road 5 out of 10. In more capable hands, this easily could have been an 8. Maybe even a 9. But as it stands- it's just mediocre.
juicygirl6789
This movie has everything. Man hating lesbians. Cannibals. Men dying. Incredible dialogue. Man hating lesbians. Doesn't deserve all the hate directed at it at all.
James Hitchcock
In "Jennifer's Body" Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried play "Best Friends Forever" who, we are told, have absolutely nothing in common. I know what you're thinking. Surely Megan and Amanda have one thing in common- they're both absolutely gorgeous. But not in this film. Admittedly, Megan's character Jennifer is gorgeous, but Amanda is supposed to be plain, dowdy and nerdish. As if! The Best Friends Forever are the beautiful Jennifer Check and the plain, dowdy and nerdish Anita Lesnicki, classmates at a high school near Devil's Kettle, Minnesota. Anita is generally known by the nickname "Needy"; this might just about be phonetically plausible, given that most Americans would pronounce "Anita" as "Aneeda", but the name was obviously chosen to reflect Anita's personality. (She is "needy" in the American sense of "emotionally demanding", not the British one of "financially impoverished"). One night the two girls are attending a concert given by a rock group in a local bar when fire breaks out and several people are killed. Both girls escape unharmed, but immediately afterwards Jennifer disappears with the members of the band, who have also escaped. Soon afterwards, Needy realises that her friend's personality has changed, and not for the better. Even before the fire, Jennifer could be spoilt, selfish and bitchy, but now she's positively evil. That's not evil as in "stealing other girls' boyfriends". That's evil as in "murdering boys in order to drink their blood". Needy also realises that she is the only one who can bring Jennifer's reign of terror to an end, preferably before Needy's own boyfriend Chip becomes the next victim. The exact reason behind Jennifer's personality change would be too complicated, as well as too absurd, to set out here, but it is connected to two interesting facts we learn in the course of the film:-1.It is hard to succeed in the indie rock world these days unless you sell your soul to the Devil. Literally. 2. If you ever need to sacrifice a virgin to Satan, it pays to make sure your chosen victim really is virgo intacta. Trying to sacrifice a non-virgin can have all sorts of unfortunate consequences. The film relies on a lot of the standard high schools movie stereotypes; the students, for example, seem to be divided into four categories- attractive but spoilt and arrogant girls like Jennifer, equally arrogant but stupid "jocks" (inevitably male- no American teenage girl, apparently, ever takes an interest in sport except as a cheerleader), bespectacled, nerdish academics (of both sexes) and moody, emotional Goths (ditto). It does however occasionally depart from the standard clichés; Jennifer, for example, may be a cheerleader but is not dating any of the football team. (Or anyone else for that matter; she is too much of a slut to have a steady boyfriend). And she is never described as "most popular girl in the school"- the scriptwriter Diablo Cody (what an appropriate forename for the writer of a horror film) clearly realised that spoilt, arrogant girls, however attractive they may be, are seldom popular with their peers. Cody and director Karyn Kusama seem to have had high ambitions to make a feminist horror film. Cody, noting that many previous horror films had featured female characters mainly as the screaming victims of evil males, said she wanted the film to "speak to female empowerment and explore the complex relationships between best friends". I am not sure about "female empowerment"; there is a big difference between "being empowered" and "slaughtering people", and the idea of the beautiful woman as bloodsucking succubus has less to do with feminism than with some ugly male prejudices about female sexuality. As for "complex relationships between best friends", Cody's idea of "complexity" is to have some fairly obvious lesbian subtext spill over in one scene into full-blown lesbian text. Well, at least that should keep the lads-mag brigade happy. (This was one of two films from 2009, the other being "Chloe", in which Amanda Seyfried played a bisexual character). The film was obviously influenced by "Heathers" from 1988 (possibly the best satirical high-school comedy), but lacks that film's depth and satirical bite. Despite the gap between the film-makers' expressed intentions and their actual achievement, "Jennifer's Body" is not altogether a bad movie. As I said, the plot of is absurd beyond words, but then it is meant to be a black comedy, and supernatural horror high school black comedies are not a film genre known for strict realism or plausibility.. Both the leading actresses, especially the lovely Megan, throw themselves into their roles with enthusiasm, and there is some sharp dialogue, even some social comment about the modern tendency to sentimentalise tragedies and the way in which the rock band are able to bask in some wholly undeserved praise for their supposed heroism on the night of the fire. If it is nonsense, at least it is reasonably enjoyable nonsense. 5/10
