From the director of piss-poor sci-fi flick AEON FLUX and the writer of over-hyped teen comedy JUNO comes the US box office flop, JENNIFER'S BODY. The movie is basically a vehicle for Megan Fox of TRANSFORMERS fame. She plays a pretty high school girl called Jennifer who hangs out with a plain girl called, I kid you not, Needy (Amanda Seyfried - the girl from MAMMA MIA!). The relationship dynamic between them is sinister: Jennifer puts Needy down, always wanting to be the "pretty one" who gets the attention, whereas Needy, despite her boyfriend, clearly has a crush on Jennifer. One fateful night, the girls go to a rock concert in a local bar, where the hot, devil-worshipping, high-school virgin-seducing lead singer is played by (I'm really not joking) SETH FROM THE OC! I mean, talk about casting against type! The willing suspension of disbelief continues, as Jennifer fends off Seth's evil attentions and becomes a teenage vampire. In fairness, she doesn't burn up in sunlight TRUE BLOOD-style, which is convenient given that the film is set in high school. Still, if she doesn't seduce, eviscerate and then feed off dumb guys every once in a while her hair loses that magic lustre and she starts getting spotty.
The movie is basically a ludicrous confection. I think writer, Diablo Cody, is trying to go for the lacerating black humour of HEATHERS while referencing classic horror flicks. Problem is, Diablo Cody doesn't write High School dialogue that anyone in High School would actually say. I mean, who actually calls hot guys "salty?". And, OK, Jennifer may be a narcissistic bitch, but she's nothing on Heather Chandler, with or without blood-lust. And as for the horror scenes - notably an early vomiting scene - the best you can say is that they are unintentionally funny.
And so, this ludicrous, sporadically unintentionally funny movie, limps along to its predictable, equally ludicrous ending. One can't help but feel that Megan Fox, while laudably trying to distance herself from the slick but vapid Michael Bay franchise, has taken something of a wrong turn.
JENNIFER'S BODY played Toronto 2009 and opened earlier this year in the US, Iceland, Canada, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mexico. It opens on October 15th in the Netherlands and on October 22nd in Belgium, France, Croatia, Brazil and Estonia. It opens on October 28th in Egypt, Australia, the Czech Republic, Greece, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Denmark and Poland. It opens on November 5th in Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway and the UK. It opens in Finland on January 22nd.
Eventual tags: Karyn Kusama, Diablo Cody, Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfriend, Johnny Simmons, Adam Brody, j k simmons, amy sedaris, m david mullen,
