It's never easy to blend horror with comedy. Many films try and fail. This year luckily movies like Drag Me to Hell and now, Jennifer's Body have succeeded.
Director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Aeon Flux) and writer Diablo Cody (Juno) take us into the sad and fcked up world of high school, now with demonic possession. Megan Fox plays Jennifer, The hot girl that all the girls strive to be and all the boys want. Amanda Seyfried plays Jennifer's nerdy best friend, Needy. The girls have been best friends since childhood and its apparent how close they are, but for what reason?
We meet Needy in the opening scene at the looney bin. She's gone completely crazy after all that has happened with Jennifer and all that the town has gone through. We are taken by flashback to the very beginning to see how it all went down. Cody's writing is perfect in the scenes of day to day high school life. I mean some laugh out loud stuff which would fit in with a darker telling of Mean Girls or Jawbreaker. These two best friends are inseparable, until the bar scene where they meet the band, Low Shoulder. Here is where things change and we get into some fantastic horror. Kusama's directs this in such a deceptive way. She really ramps up the tension because unlike most horror films this one is pretty unpredictable. The more the story reveals itself we see whose really at fault for Jennifer's craving for boy meat (Settle down perverts!)
The thing that works about this movie is its creative approach to the typical scary movie. Yes you get scares but in those scares there is this offer of light. The dialogue sparks in these darkest moments. Like the sacrificial scene. Its brutal but punched with one liners which really adds to the evil of the whole situation. The movie was an R rating, thank goodness. You get all the profanity and bloody violence you can handle. Although I wish the gore level was a little higher but I can see why they pulled back. There is a great cameo by Amy Sedaris as Needy's mom. Overall, a fun horror film that I will definitely watch again. If just to hear some of the dialogue again. The final scene kicks in with the Hole song, Violet. Perfect. The end credits cap off the story with a satisfying conclusion. My Grade: B+
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