Jennifer's Body

Disclaimer: Before reading this review, I think it's fair to mention that I do not know any teen agers very well. More to the point, I don't know any teen agers who live, act, and talk like the characters in Jennifer's Body. I didn't know any teen agers who spoke like Juno, either. While I enjoy the cadence and irony of their Diablo-Cody-created dialogue, their banter is a constant reminder that I am watching a movie. This particular movie seems to have been designed to be watched by high school kids on a cell phone, while texting friends about boys and driving. That is, until the studio-dictated lesbian scene kicks in. More on that in a moment.

I went into Jennifer's Body with improbably high expectations. I do enjoy Diablo Cody's writing. Juno was a very strong first script and her work as a contributor to Entertainment Weekly is usually wickedly witty. Her characters talk in ways that no one talks. It's like watching a Shakespeare adaptation where the dialogue has been left intact but the rest of the story updated. David Mamet has the same affliction, a power for words that belies his best intent of a believable story.

This story happens to surround Jennifer, played by Megan Fox, a slutty, catty, not-surprisingly insecure high school vixen. The essential plot is that while sneaking into the local dive bar to catch a band of "salty" indie rockers, Jennifer is changed into something terrifying. Something evil. Her friend, played with dorky eyeglasses (meant to indicate that she is NOT the hot one) by Amanda Seyfried, is the only person who can see how evil Jennifer has become. Perhaps the reason that no one else notices, and why we the audience don't care, is that Jennifer was already dangerous when the story began. Fox plays Jennifer as a mischevious tart who uses her sexuality to humiliate and control everyone in her life. This characterization allows Fox plenty of screen time in a cheerleader outfit or leg warmers, but it doesn't give us anything to care about.

Her character becomes possessed by a boy-eating demon, which should be scary. Instead, I spent much of the movie hoping someone would kill JENNIFER and leave the demon. The latter is much more interesting than the former and I'd pay to see a good movie about it. Rather than crafting a story worth caring about, however, the producers instead opted to orchestrate a scene in which a panty-clad Jennifer seduces her geeky friend. Their make out scene is the most gruesomely filmed and lit scene in the whole movie proving that the producers are more interested in devouring the purity and exploiting the weaknesses of high school boys than their demonic lead character.

The apparent villians in the movie (the aforementioned indie rockers) treat murder as such as flippant enterprise that it gave me chills. Say what you will about the horror films made over the years, at least most people CARED that someone was dying. The irony-laden, pop-culture-driven desire for fame and fortune that led these young men to the acts they perform is more dangerous than anything this movie has to offer.

I expected more from Diablo Cody. An intelligent, engaging writer and a powerful female voice in cinema, she should have been able to deliver more. Rosemary's Baby or even the original A Nightmare on Elm Street boasted more believable female leads. The horror genre has made a killing by killing defenseless teenage girls. This film seemed poised to flip the whole enterprise on its head and reverse the gender roles traditionally found in these pictures. Instead, with its high school hooker costumes and exploitative lesbian scene, this movie drives young women further into the meat grinder of horror movies. Feel free to skip this one.