Jennifer's Body
I am a fan of Juno and the Diablo Cody stripper-to-writer story so no matter what this movie was about I wanted it to work and I wanted to like it. However, from the trailer I figured that this was going to be an awful movie and the only reason most people would go see it would be to see Megan Fox’s (Jennifer) boobs (which you don’t). I was surprised to see Amanda Seyfried (Needy, Jennifer’s best friend) in it. I only know her from Big Love where I think she does a pretty good job.
The plot in a nutshell is:
Diablo Cody
Indie bar band Low Shoulder seeks virgin for sacrifice to Satan so that indie bar band can enjoy fame and fortune. Only their sacrificial virgin is anything but! The student’s of Devil’s Kettle high learn that if you sacrifice a non-virgin she will return to life as a demon who hungers for the flesh of frightened souls.
Who reads that and says, “Wow! What a twist! We must make this movie!”
I’ve seen a lot of horror movies in my time. From Alien Dead to Zombie Holocaust and a lot in between. I can accept people being evil for many reasons. However a botched sacrifice to Satan just seems silly to me. What’s worse is Amanda Seyfried figures all this out through the school library’s occult section (which she admits isn’t all that big). Do high schools have occult sections?
In a horror/thriller, the movie only needs two or three really clever devices to get you to the murders or chases. Once those devices are established the murders can almost be as generic as any Friday the 13th death. But the things that tie this movie together are so poorly put together it’s laughable.
Amanda Seyfried
Jennifer and Needy are at a dive bar watching a band. Needy overhears the band talking about Jennifer and the possibility that she’s a virgin. Needy confronts the band and for some reason tells them that Jennifer is a virgin when it’s clear (to Needy) that the band is looking for a virgin (presumably to add a virgin notch to the old belt). Jennifer reconvenes with Needy and the band starts their song. Jennifer is shown awake, alert and never taking a drug or even drinking a beer. Then during the song she gets lethargic and glassy eyed. At this point a fire starts. However no one notices it. Jennifer continues to sway as if she is in a trance. The fire gets bigger. Still no one notices. We again see Jennifer closer, and she is completely entranced. Finally a flaming support beam falls on some customers tables. At this point people notice the fire and then spontaneously combust. People are literally engulfed in flames. The scene paints a picture of something more sinister then a simple electrical fire. Slow motion people burning and screaming in agony. Then more scenes of Jennifer on her knees glazed over lost, looking through the fire.
The way everything is shot, timed and framed, you’d think that she was inadvertently the cause. Perhaps this would be the first big manifestation of her evil powers and with some flashback scenes Needy would see that her best friend has always had an inadvertent evilness about her. I mean if this were the case and now Needy had to unravel a mystery about how her best friend has a kind of Damien/Carrie thing going on, that would be kind of good. However this is not the case.
Megan Fox
Needy pulls Jennifer out of the burning bar. Flaming people are seen running to and fro, flinging themselves out of windows and onto the ground. It’s horrific. It’s as if the bar was built of kerosene soaked lumber. At any rate, Low Shoulder shows up all suave, cool and drinking their drinks. They offer to give Jennifer and Needy a ride. However Needy realizes that they have an ulterior motive and tries to convince Jennifer of it. Jennifer is still in a trance and as if hypnotized says that she wants to go with the band. With very little protest from Needy “Jennifer no. Come on. Let’s go”, Jennifer does go into the Low Shoulder van and they pull off.
At the end of the movie a demon possessed Jennifer reveals to Needy what happened in the van. She starts off “That night at the bar, I was pretty f—-d up and went with the band”. But as I said before never does she take a drug or even drink anything that could have gotten her drunk or been laced with a rufee. Perhaps Cody had intended the line to mean that she was in shock but if that were the case a better line would have been “After that fire I was so scared I didn’t know what I was doing so I want with the band”. “I was pretty f—-d up” generally means too much drinking or too much drugging.
Then there is the issue of how everything is timed. Again, this is all revealed by Jennifer at the end of the movie to tie everything together. Jennifer leaves with Low Shoulder in the van. Needy goes home. Low Shoulder takes Jennifer to a mountain cliff that over looks the Devil’s Kettle whirlpool (“scientists keep throwing all kinds of stuff in the hole but they never find it”) and tie her down. The lead singer quickly tells the band members why they are there (too sacrifice a virgin to Satan so they can become big time rock and rollers). The bass player has second thoughts so the band has to convince him that being a second rate indie band isn’t is cool as a mega rock band that had to sacrifice a virgin to Satan. Reluctantly the bass player agrees. They sing Tommy Tutone’s “Jennifer” and then sacrifice her. The lead singer throws the knife into the mysterious whirlpool. Meanwhile, Needy gets home and calls her boyfriend (not the police to report the supposed rapist band). Then Jennifer has awoken from her murder, untied herself and is now wandering the streets. She makes her way to Needy’s house and bangs on the door. Needy, still on the phone with her boyfriend, checks the front door. No one is there. Though somehow a shadowy figure is lurking behind Needy in the house. Needy’s boyfriend offers to come over. But Needy says no. After seeing people engulfed in flames, witnessing her best friend being take away by the supposed rapist band and now someone banging on her door of course she wants to be alone. After she gets off the phone a bloody Jennifer jumps out at Needy, barfs up black stuff and then runs out of Needy’s house.
So in the time it took Needy to drive home and make a quick call to her boyfriend, Low Shoulder was able to drive Jennifer to a mountain, tie her up, sing to her and kill her. Before Needy gets off the phone, Jennifer has awoken, untied herself and walked back to Needy’s house.
Some more people are killed but most of that’s done in the style of any other teenage slasher flick. Needy kills Jennifer and is sent to a mental institute.
The mysterious whirlpool is an integral part of the movie. As I mentioned before, scientists would throw stuff into the whirlpool (mostly orange balls) and attempt to see where the balls would end up. However they could never find their orange balls. At the end of Movie, Needy has escaped from the mental institute. While she’s walking near a drainage ditch she sees the orange balls and the knife that killed Jennifer. A bunch of scientists couldn’t find this drainage ditch (which was just by a road) but Needy inadvertently stumbles upon it. I get that it’s a plot device and it could have been a decent one, but the execution of it just felt tacked on. In fact the whole script felt like the first draft of an eighth grade creative writing assignment. All the elements of a good horror thriller are in there but it needed some refinement.
Oh, and even though Low Shoulder botches the sacrifice, they still got the fame and fortune they were after. So really, it was win-win for them. I mean, they did end up getting their comeuppance, just not from Satan and not until they made lots of money and did lots of blow and basically got to enjoy the rock star lifestyle.