Jennifer’s Body (2009): Honest to Bog
Penned by Juno scribe Diablo Cody, Jennifer’s Body is a black horror-comedy that dares to tell the amazing and unlikely story of Megan Fox transforming into a man-eating bitch.
Our story opens with Needy (played by the pop-eyed and comically adorable Amanda Seyfried, somehow crammed into the Plain Jane role) kicking some poor orderly’s ass in a mental institution. Ten seconds in and our hero is incarcerated already? But how? Needy sets up the lengthy flashback with disaffected nonchalance, and we travel back in time to scant weeks earlier, where nerdy wallflower Needy and her BFF Jennifer (Megan Fox) share both a deep friendship and an inexplicably convenient psychic link that’s one part atmosphere, one part plot crutch.
Needy and Jennifer attend a local dive bar, where an unbearable pre-fab indie band (Low Shoulder, a group mercifully nonexistent beyond the bounds of the movie) belt out a cloying sugar-pop ballad. Did you enjoy it? No? Well, you’ll be hearing it throughout the film, so just you buckle up. As Low Shoulder hits the chorus, an electrical fire starts, helpfully fulfilling the movie’s gore quotient early. The agonized screams of extras peal in the background as Needy and Jennifer escape and swap pop culture references. In a truly clumsy transition into the movie’s plot, the members of Low Shoulder hypnotize the more-than-willing Jennifer into their creepy van, and she disappears — until later that night, that is.
If you’re going into Jennifer’s Body (note the cunning double entendre) expecting Fox to artfully portray an unsettling transformation from snobby cheerleader to flesh-eating abomination, brace for the first of many disappointments. Human Jennifer and demonic Jennifer are basically indistinguishable, save for the fact that demonic Jennifer spews bilious black fluid everywhere, just in case it’s unclear that something’s amiss.
From there, the movie descends into a formula that, while dressed in ironic new clothes, relies just as heavily on slasher conventions as a thousand other films. Jennifer begins methodically devouring the unfortunate souls of Devil’s Kettle High School, and the requisite parade of clueless authority figures and sarcastic voice-overs ensues. Jennifer must consume the blood of the living in order to maintain her volcanic sexuality, which is doubtless some kind of subversive statement on puberty, or menstruation, or Revlon or something. Needy, despite supposedly being the intelligent one in the cast, wilfully goes along with the classic Idiot Plot; the story only moves forward as long as she (and the audience) pretend certain things aren’t happening.
Body’s script groans under the weight of Cody’s shrill attempts to seem relevant. Much like Juno, both the characters and the dialogue swell with quirky quirkaciousness like pustulent sores: Every available surface is plastered with posters of the hippest bands you’ve never heard of. The high school teacher is a scarred, fretting ninny with a hook for a hand (played by an utterly wasted J.K. Simmons), and the characters utter clunky, honest-to-blog phrases like “cheese and fries” and ironically add “dot com” and “dot org” to the ends of their sentences, thus demonstrating to the audience that they are surely hip teenagers living in the information age and not just more twenty-somethings pretending to be high schoolers in a horror movie.
Brisk pomo witticisms aside, Jennifer’s Body has plenty to offer in the guilty-pleasure arena. Bare midriffs and plunging necklines abound, and even the ostensibly frumpy Needy dutifully sheds her clothes somewhere in the second act. The gory bits, brief as they are, are well-done, and the Seyfried / Fox makeout scene will surely satisfy those enterprising souls willing to endure the entire film rather than just search for the scene on Youtube.
The movie lumbers through the inevitable plot elements (would you believe that the cosmically evil Fox eventually tries to seduce Needy’s Zack-Efron-lite boyfriend Chip? Would you?), and we eventually learn that Jennifer was sacrificed to the Devil by the members of Low Shoulder in order that they might enjoy sweet pop-band success. In true Diablo Cody style, the film shoves our nose into the urine-stained carpet of irony as the band cuts loose with a light-hearted stanza of “867-5309 (Jenny)” before brutally stabbing her to death. Ha ha! Get it? Because her name is… look, forget it.
To its credit, Jennifer’s Body does contain a final twist that’s genuinely entertaining, even if it is set up with all the sly subtlety of an air horn at a Jets game. It seems de rigeur that one can’t so much as mention Megan Fox without taking a swipe at her acting chops. In truth, Fox is not terrible, but she’s out-acted at every step by Seyfried, whose transition from nerdy girl to swaggering, cynical badass is the most interesting thing about the movie. Needy’s epilogue satisfies the revenge instinct, even if it does give off the impression that the movie ends just when it’s getting interesting.
In short, Jennifer’s Body ends up being precisely kind of movie Cody was desperately trying to subvert — long cleavage and deus ex machina, short on story. Jennifer’s Body is the kind of movie best enjoyed with some sarcastic friends and a generous supply of alcohol. Chances are your own wry pop-culture jokes will endure in your memory far longer than Cody’s.
