Jennifer's Body
Rated R (Bloody Violence, Sexuality, Language, Brief Drug Use
Run Time: 103 minutes
Normally I don't watch horror movies. I loathe their outlandish plots that force the victims to be incredibly stupid or else it would never conceivably work. I detest the amount of shameless lore that's butchered and inaccuracies made for the sake of creating a more unlikable villain. I'm enraged by the sheer bastardization of everything and how "horror" is equivalent to the word "gore".
But more than anything, I hate how horror flicks are now required to have some sort of superfluous sex scene. It doesn't matter if there's a punishment for this (Friday the 13th style), but every single one of them has to include somebody getting naked.
However, Jennifer's Body takes this one step further; not only including quite a few needless shots of Megan Fox getting naked (most notably one scene where she's skinny dipping in a lake and there's no rhyme or reason for it ever mentioned), but scenes of sex between characters that are only present for the subsidiary soft-core porn needed to make any movie successful in today's oversexed marketplace.
The Plot
The plot is a joke, plain and simple.
Trying not to give too much of the movie away, Jennifer (Megan Fox) goes to a club/bar with her friend, "Needy" (a name that's never explained, played by Amanda Seyfried) to see an indie rock show within their quaint town of Devil's Kettle. Being the "bad girl" she is, Jennifer lays eyes on the lead singer, and decides that she's going to do the stereotypical head-girl-in-school thing and sleep with him. In a short series of poorly done cinematography that reminds me quite a bit of The Blair Witch Project (shaking cameras, fast cuts, and lots of screaming, even throwing in some out-of-place sound effects just for fun) the club burns down killing many inhabitants. Shortly after, the lead singer of the band comes out to make sure that Jennifer is alright, and takes her into the band's van, and speeds off into the night, leaving Needy confused and scared for her friend.
Later that night, Needy finds Jennifer bloodied and hysterical as she proceeds to break things in Needy's house and even eat a chicken before throwing up... liquid evil or something and running into the night. From there, grisly deaths and more appearances of a bloodied Jennifer confront Needy as she tries to figure out just what happened on that fateful night to her best friend, and how to stop her bloodbath.
From that you might not think there's much to dislike about the movie's plot, and I wish I could go into what I really hate without spoiling anything, but... it's the rest of the movie that really pisses me off. Spoiler tag powers, do your thing.
Oh, and the story starts in medias res with Needy in an insane asylum, babbling on about how she's an evil little hellion after the events of what happened.
The plot is cliche and bland, and only sets the movie up to be a Friday the 13th clone of killing people who fall under a certain ruleset. However, the movie fails at both of those: giving only mild bloodiness and the only rule to being a victim is "you're male, and you're susceptible to my womanly charms." Also, the body count of the villain is only three. Failure as a "slasher" type horror, but it's not suitable for any other genre.
Dialogue
The dialogue of Jennifer's Body is horrific; a mixture of far-fetched conclusions that are even more outlandish than the answers to the Riddler's riddles in the old Batman cartoons, and painfully bad one-liners. A few starring moments are:
-"Check it out... a bowing knife." "Bowie? Nice."
-"You are so salty."
-(After a big long bit of makeout foreplay) "Let's go swimming... I want to see your breaststroke."
-"Nice hardware... Ace."
and the tagline of the movie...
Does it fit the genre?
As I said before; this movie fails to deliver the scares. It seems like it wanted to actually be something that would be more psychological or jump-out-and-spook scary, and didn't want to go the cheap gross-out gore route. Unfortunately, the way the director did things, it half-asses the gore factor, and there's no psychological or cheap jump scares to speak of.
Honestly, I'd say given the nudity scenes, the gratuitous amount of on-camera and implied sex, along with the short lesbian make-out scene... this is meant to be halfway between a horror movie and a soft-core porno. Strongly gravitating towards the second option, due to the lack of much of anything disturbing.
Other Things
My other gripes of the movie are as follows:
-A deer chomping on the dead body of a victim.
-The make-out scene... it's needless, and all it does is gives straight guys a cheap stiffy.
-The many sex scenes, a few of which are (likewise) not needed for the plot, but only serve as more pseudo-porn.
-Unexplained things that lead to conclusions that are just ridiculous including...
-The ending is just... disappointing. Trying to say it without spoilers: there could be a lot more of a bloody resolution rather than such a tame retribution.
Wrap Up
Jennifer's Body is awful. If you want a movie that tries to be horror and porno at the same time: this is the movie for you. If you're looking for a movie that will spook you, make you cringe at gore, or make you stay up all night with the lights on; you will be disappointed.
Also, for the record: I would like to say that this objectification of adding shameless sex and lesbianism to simply get more horny men watching is disgusting. If you're going to insist on that, at least have the kindness to include cute guys doing the same. Bloody wanks...
~Sui
EDIT: Let me know how you like the review and what I can improve on. I'll admit, this wasn't one of my better reviews, so I'd like your feedback to know what I can do to get better!
Rated R (Bloody Violence, Sexuality, Language, Brief Drug Use
Run Time: 103 minutes
Normally I don't watch horror movies. I loathe their outlandish plots that force the victims to be incredibly stupid or else it would never conceivably work. I detest the amount of shameless lore that's butchered and inaccuracies made for the sake of creating a more unlikable villain. I'm enraged by the sheer bastardization of everything and how "horror" is equivalent to the word "gore".
But more than anything, I hate how horror flicks are now required to have some sort of superfluous sex scene. It doesn't matter if there's a punishment for this (Friday the 13th style), but every single one of them has to include somebody getting naked.
However, Jennifer's Body takes this one step further; not only including quite a few needless shots of Megan Fox getting naked (most notably one scene where she's skinny dipping in a lake and there's no rhyme or reason for it ever mentioned), but scenes of sex between characters that are only present for the subsidiary soft-core porn needed to make any movie successful in today's oversexed marketplace.
The Plot
The plot is a joke, plain and simple.
Trying not to give too much of the movie away, Jennifer (Megan Fox) goes to a club/bar with her friend, "Needy" (a name that's never explained, played by Amanda Seyfried) to see an indie rock show within their quaint town of Devil's Kettle. Being the "bad girl" she is, Jennifer lays eyes on the lead singer, and decides that she's going to do the stereotypical head-girl-in-school thing and sleep with him. In a short series of poorly done cinematography that reminds me quite a bit of The Blair Witch Project (shaking cameras, fast cuts, and lots of screaming, even throwing in some out-of-place sound effects just for fun) the club burns down killing many inhabitants. Shortly after, the lead singer of the band comes out to make sure that Jennifer is alright, and takes her into the band's van, and speeds off into the night, leaving Needy confused and scared for her friend.
Later that night, Needy finds Jennifer bloodied and hysterical as she proceeds to break things in Needy's house and even eat a chicken before throwing up... liquid evil or something and running into the night. From there, grisly deaths and more appearances of a bloodied Jennifer confront Needy as she tries to figure out just what happened on that fateful night to her best friend, and how to stop her bloodbath.
From that you might not think there's much to dislike about the movie's plot, and I wish I could go into what I really hate without spoiling anything, but... it's the rest of the movie that really pisses me off. Spoiler tag powers, do your thing.
Essentially, the indie band tries to sacrifice Jennifer as a virgin sacrifice to Satan to promote their record label and increase their fame. They do this by using a book called "Witches", with the bold preface of a normal pentagram. They sacrifice her to the big Evil, but because she's not truly a virgin, she turns into a succubus who's thirsty for blood. Boy's blood. And organs, too.
Needy finds this out after being boldly told by Jennifer, because "...I'm your best friend, I thought you should know." Also she does research on Satanism, ritual sacrifice, and demonology... right in her school library.
Jennifer apparently chows down on boys to steal their youth or something that's never really explained, but she's more beautiful once she's eaten. She lies, cheats, and continues to eat.
It boils down to a final battle between Jennifer and Needy, ending when Needy cuts the BFF necklace they shared from Jennifer's neck. She looses her powers, and Needy stabs her with an exacto knife.
Needy finds this out after being boldly told by Jennifer, because "...I'm your best friend, I thought you should know." Also she does research on Satanism, ritual sacrifice, and demonology... right in her school library.
Jennifer apparently chows down on boys to steal their youth or something that's never really explained, but she's more beautiful once she's eaten. She lies, cheats, and continues to eat.
It boils down to a final battle between Jennifer and Needy, ending when Needy cuts the BFF necklace they shared from Jennifer's neck. She looses her powers, and Needy stabs her with an exacto knife.
Oh, and the story starts in medias res with Needy in an insane asylum, babbling on about how she's an evil little hellion after the events of what happened.
The plot is cliche and bland, and only sets the movie up to be a Friday the 13th clone of killing people who fall under a certain ruleset. However, the movie fails at both of those: giving only mild bloodiness and the only rule to being a victim is "you're male, and you're susceptible to my womanly charms." Also, the body count of the villain is only three. Failure as a "slasher" type horror, but it's not suitable for any other genre.
Dialogue
The dialogue of Jennifer's Body is horrific; a mixture of far-fetched conclusions that are even more outlandish than the answers to the Riddler's riddles in the old Batman cartoons, and painfully bad one-liners. A few starring moments are:
-"Check it out... a bowing knife." "Bowie? Nice."
-"You are so salty."
-(After a big long bit of makeout foreplay) "Let's go swimming... I want to see your breaststroke."
-"Nice hardware... Ace."
and the tagline of the movie...
It was painful to sit through this dialogue that all-too-consistently was filled with either this terrible joke of writing, or even worse: the sounds of moaning and gasping as the parts of sex scenes.
Does it fit the genre?
As I said before; this movie fails to deliver the scares. It seems like it wanted to actually be something that would be more psychological or jump-out-and-spook scary, and didn't want to go the cheap gross-out gore route. Unfortunately, the way the director did things, it half-asses the gore factor, and there's no psychological or cheap jump scares to speak of.
Honestly, I'd say given the nudity scenes, the gratuitous amount of on-camera and implied sex, along with the short lesbian make-out scene... this is meant to be halfway between a horror movie and a soft-core porno. Strongly gravitating towards the second option, due to the lack of much of anything disturbing.
Other Things
My other gripes of the movie are as follows:
-A deer chomping on the dead body of a victim.
-The make-out scene... it's needless, and all it does is gives straight guys a cheap stiffy.
-The many sex scenes, a few of which are (likewise) not needed for the plot, but only serve as more pseudo-porn.
-Unexplained things that lead to conclusions that are just ridiculous including...
the psychic link between the girls, how she chooses her next victims, how cutting the necklace broke the demon powers, just to name a few
-The ending is just... disappointing. Trying to say it without spoilers: there could be a lot more of a bloody resolution rather than such a tame retribution.
Wrap Up
Jennifer's Body is awful. If you want a movie that tries to be horror and porno at the same time: this is the movie for you. If you're looking for a movie that will spook you, make you cringe at gore, or make you stay up all night with the lights on; you will be disappointed.
Also, for the record: I would like to say that this objectification of adding shameless sex and lesbianism to simply get more horny men watching is disgusting. If you're going to insist on that, at least have the kindness to include cute guys doing the same. Bloody wanks...
~Sui
EDIT: Let me know how you like the review and what I can improve on. I'll admit, this wasn't one of my better reviews, so I'd like your feedback to know what I can do to get better!
