Well, who would have expected? A former stripper as a writer teams up with the star whom many dub as merely a stripper to produce what is, in my humble opinion, the pleasant surprise thus far of the 2009 Halloween horror release season. "Jennifer's Body" is far from a masterpiece, but you can definitely do a lot worse for the price of admission, and I'll say this - it kept me awake. Either I need to get a new movie watching day or I need to start taking naps on Friday, but man - the occasion when I can actually sit through an entire movie in a theater anymore is a rare day indeed. And this movie is definitely raucously entertaining enough to do just that, so who knows what it would do for a fully functional human being? ;)More than anything else, this movie is a testament to the writing ability of Diablo Cody. While I wasn't a huge fan of "Juno," I did admire the pretty weird, and sometimes brilliant, dialogue. While neither of the films I've seen that she has scripted can be classified as realistic by any means, the high school setting of this film is much more authentic than the alternate reality seen in "Juno"; the dialogue is fresh, snappy and funny even in the scenes that are meant to be scary, and the movie actually managed to surprise me on a few occasions with the way the story unfolded. As a horror fan, I thought I had this movie pegged from the get-go just by seeing the trailers and TV ads; I'll gladly admit that I was completely wrong on pretty much all of my predictions.
In "Jennifer's Body," Needy Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried of "Mamma Mia!") and Jennifer (Megan Fox) of Devil's Kettel, Minnesota (yes!) have been best friends since childhood. Cody's script pays a lot of attention to the strange love-hate relationship between the two, on more than one occasion even hinting at some fascinating romantic tension. Of course, one of these occasions is extremely unsubtle, but I'll save that little surprise for anyone else who decides to see this movie. The dynamic between the two characters also seems to be one of dominance, as Needy is eternally in agreement with Jennifer, much to the chagrin of Needy's boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons).
The event that sets "Jennifer's Body" in motion occurs roughly a quarter of the way into the film, as the two central characters pay a visit to to the small, backwoods bar that serves as a hangout for the local teens. As they watch a band begin their set, a fire unexpectedly erupts, killing several people inside. Jennifer and Needy, along with the members of the band, manage to escape, at which point the lead singer of the band (whom Jennifer had her eyes on) offers her a ride home.
What follows is actually some pretty nerve-wracking stuff, as Jennifer shows up at Needy's doorstep later that night, blood dripping from her face and legs, and somehow strangely inhuman. The first scene when we meet "demon Jennifer" is actually a pretty frightening little scene, and admittedly made your friend the Horror Nerd jump in his seat a little bit.
As for the rest of the movie's plot, I'll let you watch it unfold for yourself (and I highly recommend you do), because while it's really nothing that you haven't seen before, I once again have to freely admit that I didn't see the flick's plot unraveling quite the way that it actually wound up doing. As for the performances, firstly, Megan Fox. Believe it or not, she actually shows some promise in a role that requires a little something more than just looking hot and running away from explosions. Granted, the role doesn't require MUCH more than that - she still isn't given much in the way of emotionally overwrought stuff to work with, but she didn't outright bore me the way she has in her other work (and I haven't seen the "Transformers" flicks). So if you're turned off of this movie just by Fox, she's not a reason to avoid it.
The movie's real discovery is Seyfried. It's been a while since I've seen "Mamma Mia!," and in scanning through imdb.com, her only other movie that I've seen is "Mean Girls"...and that a long time ago. I honestly can't remember seeing her in anything else, but both her performance and character in "Jennifer's Body" are pretty electric stuff. While it's true that Cody doesn't make her an out-and-out saint in the mold of countless slasher film heroines, Seyfried is tough, vulnerable, and strangely relatable in the role of hanger-oner, and aptly named, Needy.
As I stated in the opening paragraph, though, this is far from a perfect movie. Cody gets a little carried away with her clever dialogue, sometimes inserting it in jarring fashion in the middle of some of the more suspenseful scenes, and while I praised Fox ever-so-slightly in this movie, there are a few scenes yet that are downright groan-worthy. Don't get me wrong; she's got a LONG way to go.
Still, for the amount of pre-release hatred that this movie got on some of the message boards, to this observer, this was a movie that didn't deserve the bile.
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