Jennifer’s Body (2009), the openly feminist horror comedy movie filled with witty, quotable dialogue, that did what no horror movie had done before by making its two central characters female… or is it? Well, I wrote this review, so… Warning: SPOILERS.
Welcome to Devil’s Kettle, a small town named after a waterfall that disappears into a seemingly bottomless hole. This is where we find Jennifer and Anita, aka Needy, who have been best friends since they were kids. They even have matching BFF necklaces! The 2 couldn’t be more different – Jennifer is a beautiful cheerleader whom all the boys lust after, while Needy is a dork who wears glasses (which means the audience must accept her as plain even though she’s played by Amanda Seyfried) and has a sweet boyfriend, Chip, who doesn’t like his girlfriend’s bestie. The movie begins with Jennifer in her room watching TV, while Needy watches her through the window and declares in voiceover that “Hell is a teenage girl”. This is the beginning of Diablo Cody’s quest to create some iconic lines and expressions. Her trademark dialogue is alternatively cringy, impenetrable, and simply trying too hard to be cool. For instance, when Needy watches Jennifer’s cheer routine at a match, one of their classmates tells them they’re “lesbigay”. Does she mean lesbian? How would a teenager not know the word? Or is it meant to be read as LesBiGay and no one reminded Cody that it would be impossible to tell the difference without seeing it written down? At one point, Needy tells Jennifer that she needs a dictionary to understand her, and it’s pretty much the truth. It’s also funny how “salty”, which Jennifer used as a substitute for “hot”, did become slang but for “angry” and “resentful”. Thankfully, there’s a lot of normal dialogue in between, though none of it memorable. After we see Jennifer in her room, the movie jumps to an angry, violent Needy in a mental institution, so it’s clear from the start that this will not have a happy ending. And it’s all thanks to indie band Low Shoulder, who kidnap Jennifer and sacrifice her to Satan in exchange for success. Even though, according to Jennifer herself, she hasn’t been a virgin since Junior High, the ritual doesn’t end with the band being torn apart by an angry Satan. Instead, they get exactly what they want, but Jennifer comes back too, with a hungry demon inside her that turns her into a literal man eater. This makes absolutely no sense, but don’t expect much occult talk. The only lore the the audience is given is a brief explanation of how Jennifer got possessed, instructions on how to kill the demon – just stab it through the heart because Jennifer’s Body would rather have what’s essentially a super-powered fight that would fit better in a Marvel streaming series (that’s the quality we’re dealing with here) than the expected exorcism – and also a final reveal that anyone who’s bitten by a demon gets all its cool powers and none of that inconvenient hunger for human flesh, which makes it sound like a radioactive spider.
Jennifer’s first stop after the possession is Needy’s house, where she smiles creepily, tries to eat a roasted chicken, pukes spiky black goo, and gets all up close and personal with her bestie. This means Needy knows that there’s something very wrong going on with her from the start, but it takes a long time for her to put the pieces together. The visions of what Jennifer is doing and which will never be explained help. The link seems to break when Needy rips Jennifer’s BFF necklace during their final fight, but she never really wonders why she’s seeing things, and I’m really tired of characters not freaking out when they start hallucinating. Unless you’re high, go see a doctor, dammit! Something else that’s never explained is exactly how much influence the demon has on its vessel. Jennifer’s behaviour that first night at Needy’s seemed to indicate it was in full control, but afterwards, it looks like it’s only Jennifer with added bloodlust and special powers (super strength, regeneration, and a bit of levitation). The demon remains nameless and devoid of personality, and this creates a problem – if this is all Jennifer, including her reaction to the deadly fire that took several of her classmates and the ease with which she kills, then she’s a total psycho. Not a mean girl, a PSYCHO. How the hell did Needy never notice that? So, possibly sociopathic Jennifer must now kill to keep the demon happy and her hair glowing like a shampoo commercial. Thankfully, High School is filled with horny boys eager to follow her to secluded locations where she can feast on their flesh, which is why her body count amounts to a grand total of… four (one of whom off-screen). Wait, what? Four?! And one off-screen? Seriously? Even the build-up with Needy worried about the prom, which seemed to promise a Carrie-like bloodbath is wasted and the movie opts instead to have Jennifer, Needy, and Chip face off in an abandoned pool with no one else around. The killings aren’t very imaginative, and while there are some gory moments, the movie could’ve been a lot bloodier. Even Low Shoulder’s comeuppance at the hands of a super-powered Needy is only shown in crime scene photos during the final credits. Oh, and if you’re wondering where the police is in all of this, just forget about it. Needy not going to the police is justified by Jennifer reminding her that she’s sleeping with a cadet, which is a pretty flimsy excuse to limit the focus to the two girls and Chip. Worse, even though there’s a direct connection between Jennifer and Victim Number 3, Colin, no one bothers asking her anything about his death. If the movie wanted the focus to be this limited, maybe it should’ve been set in an isolated cabin.
None of the characters is particularly deep, interesting, or funny and apart from Jennifer and Needy there really isn’t much to them. Even the two leads feel more like types than people, and Needy’s transformation looks more like trading one trope for another than any real character development. And this is where things get very, very weird. Jennifer’s Body has been called a feminist movie by more than one reviewer, but the way Needy and Jennifer are written and handled just feels like… how should I put this… a quippy version of the Madonna/Whore Complex. On one end, we have Needy, who’s shown as sweet, frumpy, and monogamous; on the other, there’s Jennifer, who’s shown as aggressive, sexy, and willing to flash her boobs at the bartender for a couple of drinks. In the end, Good Girl Needy is rewarded with super powers which she puts to good use by going after the killer band. Meanwhile, Bad Girl Jennifer seems content to just maintain her looks and mess with the supposedly inferior friend she secretly feels threatened by, and ends up not just dead but exposed as a terrible friend. The most obvious compare/contrast moment between the leads was Colin’s murder. For some reason, the movie kept switching between his fateful meeting with Jennifer and Needy losing her virginity to Chip. So we get sweet Needy with her boyfriend and aggressive Jennifer with a boy she barely knows. If the goal was to show Needy having the vision of her bestie and one of her other victims while she’s with Chip, there was no need to do that. Ironically, Jennifer is only chosen as a sacrifice because Nikolai tries to see beyond appearances, which was either a joke at the expense of the character’s stupidity, or some insightful commentary on men’s preconceived notions about women’s sexuality. I’m guessing the former, but I’m sure someone, somewhere has written an essay arguing for the latter. In fact, I could argue that the movie is about Needy taking down the patriarchy in the form of OTT straight male fantasy Jennifer, who’s turned into a monster after being used and discarded by a group of men, but I won’t. Because now the issues I mentioned in regards to the possession come into play. Low Shoulder’s botched ritual may have turned Jennifer into a killer, but the pool confrontation tells the audience that she was already a horrible person before she got into their van and we have no idea why she is the way she is. Also, let’s face it, this movie isn’t deep enough to look at the toxic friendship between the two girls as purely symbolic. Needy’s change isn’t exactly feminist either. Yes, she needed to become more assertive, but she was already brave as seen in the pool confrontation. However, instead of some character growth, the movie decided to give her a full personality makeover, because I guess the only strength that matters is physical strength.
The movie’s questionable choices regarding its female leads go beyond their personalities. At one point, for no reason whatsoever, the movie shows Jennifer swimming naked in the lake. No, the audience doesn’t actually see anything, but it was as necessary as the random lesbian interlude. Because of course there’s a random lesbian interlude and it happens after Jennifer kills Colin. A disturbed Needy returns home to find her BFF waiting for her in her bedroom. Despite everything that came before, the movie decided to have them make out. In close-up. They then start getting it on, also in close-up, until Needy stops and Jennifer leaves. It’s also made clear that this – playing “boyfriend/girlfriend” – is something they used to do. Despite being written and shot like a straight male fantasy, these scenes guaranteed that reviews and essays would refer to this as a “queer” movie. Oh, and don’t forget, these characters are meant to be teenagers. I have the sneaking suspicion that this would’ve been received a lot differently if it had been written and directed by men. There’s some more queerness during the pool confrontation, when Jennifer reveals she also kills women by saying she goes “both ways”, which of course makes one wonder why the movie decided to show her only going after boys. Did the movie want Jennifer to be a straight male fantasy so it could then turn everything on its head when she starts killing the besotted fools? If so, it should’ve given her very different victims and way more character development.
VERDICT
Jennifer’s Body is painfully average, a Buffy, the Vampire Slayer knock-off that’s not really scary, funny, or memorable. It’s not empowering or insightful either, and after Juno – which showed a teenage girl not going through with an abortion and someone who didn’t want to have children as an emotionally stunted creep – and Young Adult – in which a childless, single woman who left her hometown to make it in the big city is shown as an emotionally stunted loser hung up on her high school sweetheart, who’s happily enjoying the traditional family life she couldn’t give him – added to my suspicions that Cody’s movies are in fact secretly conservative. Oh, and that whole two female protagonists thing? Try Ginger Snaps (2000). The leads are sisters, so don’t expect any random lesbian interludes (sorry), but it’s way better than this.
By Danforth