Teenagers are easy targets. Teenage boys especially, according to this all-too-knowing comedy/horror venture from a female creative duo, director Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux, Girlfight) and Oscar-winning writer Diablo Cody (Juno, "United States of Tara").
Megan Fox as a Boyeater
Jennifer (Megan Fox, Transformers, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried, Dear John and Mamma Mia!) have been unlikely best friends since childhood. Jennifer is popular and hot, the object of desire of every boy in school. She’s also predictably vacuous, mean and self-obsessed. Needy is the nerdy yet functional one, and has a boyfriend: the unbearably sweet dufus Chip (Johnny Simmons). One evening Low Shoulder, an alternative and slightly Satanic band fronted by creepy Nikolai (Adam Brody, “The OC”), comes to play in the town’s only bar and Jennifer drags Needy to see them. The event ends in tragedy due to a fire, and the voluptuous Jennifer is mysteriously transformed into a living vagina dentata/praying mantis stereotype. She becomes every boy’s undiscriminating dream, making a meal out of jocks and emos alike and using the yearbook as her menu...until her BFF figures it all out. From then on both girls explore the familiar frenemy territory with entirely predictable results.
Jennifer’s Body Cruel to Teenagers
With two talented women at the helm and featuring two of the hottest starlets in Hollywood at the moment, Jennifer’s Body could have been a subversive delight, for both teen comedy and horror genre fans alike. But sadly it never reaches such heights. Instead, the viewer is exposed to a series of only mildly amusing but mostly cruel teenage culture put-downs, especially directed at emo fads, love of Wikipedia and teenage sex. It is all a little bit ungracious, in a kicking someone who’s already down kind of way. As to the film's dubious highlights, they include J.K. Simmons as school head master who is clearly enjoying his ill-fitting wig and Captain Hook arm, bloodthirsty bambies and digs at alternative bands making it by being on teenage flick soundtracks – while playing White Lies’ “Death” as prom music on its own soundtrack. Har har.
Visual echoes of Carrie and The Exorcist do not help, while the film sinks into starletxploitation - featuring mandatory girl-on-girl frolicking for your viewing pleasure. Jennifer’s Body wants to be so hip so badly and puts its tongue so deep in its cheek it gets swallowed. In one newly acquired word (thanks so much Diablo): freaktarded. Go and rent Teeth instead.
Patricia Bieszk - Patricia has a PhD in Cinema Studies from University of Melbourne and a couple of MA's in English Literature and Media Comm. She has ...
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