Jennifer’s Body
Okay, so this movie is, admittedly, wildly different from any movie I’ve talked about or probably will talk about in this publication. Jennifer’s Body is not only a horror film, which sets it apart in the genre department, but also not a particularly progressive film if I’m honest. There are a lot of uses of the r slur, which is honestly very not appreciated, and even some of the notions about sex and sexuality are kind of outdated, even with the blatant gayness of the film.
Having said that as a little bit of a disclaimer I guess, this movie is so freakin’ fun. It’s ridiculously indulgent, I’ll be honest, and it’s kind of easy (or it was for me) to get caught up in man-hating and actually cheering Jennifer on as she kills innocent teenage boys who have seemingly never done anything to hurt her. I mean, I was told by the person I watched it with that they did not feel all those things, but, um, Megan Fox is really hot? So I don’t feel as though I can be blamed.
But actually though, what is nice about this movie is just the way so many horror tropes are being turned around and subverted, and that’s something that can be widely appreciated about it. No longer do we see screaming girls running away from slashers who want to butcher them purely because they are pretty young girls. No longer do we watch the men having to come to the rescue to fix everything and make it all right again. No, Jennifer, while inhabited by a demon, is more or less her narcissistic, demanding, inconsiderate self, with the added traits of a succubus who kills dudes. And her victims are the young, buff hero-type men we’ve been told to expect to save the day.
Not only that, but Needy, Jennifer’s best friend, is the one who takes matters into her own hands. No one believes her, even after Jennifer comes clean to her about the whole thing, but because they have some weird psychic link going on through their ‘BFF’ necklaces, she can tell when Jennifer’s doing weird murder-y shit. She doesn’t run screaming or try to get other people involved, because she’s realised no one will believe her. Instead, she just goes to Jennifer’s house and stabs her in the heart, because she knows she’s the only one who can.
She also does what Jennifer should have been doing to begin with – she kills the assholes who did this to Jennifer in the first place. It’s the end sequence of the film, during the credits, and it’s honestly a great part that I really enjoyed.
Look, this is not even close to being the best movie I’ve watched this month (it’s probably the worst), and I wouldn’t even necessarily recommend it. Is it important like Hidden Figures or even Mad Max: Fury Road? No, definitely not. But it does something within its genre that isn’t common, and it was probably one of the first movies to do so. If you like horror, or you think Megan Fox is really hot, then yeah, check it out. It’s pretty gory, so be aware of that, but I mean, it’s a horror film so…
Jennifer’s Body is available to stream on Disney+ in Australia and the UK, and DirecTV in the US. It’s available to rent or buy everywhere on YouTube, Google Play or Amazon Prime.
