“Hell is a teenage girl”, is the opening line from ‘Jennfer’s Body’ . Penned by Diablo Cody, and directed by Karyn Kusama, it’s like a gender-flipped vampire tale set in senior high school.
Megan Fox, foxy Megan, is the titular body, and hellish indeed: the local small town hottie with a nasty attitude. She’s the classic manipulative teen temptress, albeit with a twist. When she agrees to get in a van with Nikolai Wolf’s (Adam Brody’s) shit indie band, Low Shoulder, she ends up with a lust for the blood of teenage boys. BFF Anita (Amanda Seyfried) her do-gooder counterpart, has to try and stop her succumbing to “Satan chow”.
There are some nice yuks, and Seyfried is great as the put-upon nerdy gal, but Fox doesn’t do much except pout, wiggle and pant (plus ca change) and the story’s contrivance gets increasingly apparent as it progresses.It’s pretty derivative fare. Oh yeah, and there’s the obligatory monstering of bisexual women within Jennifer. Yawn.
Still, there are some typically Cody zingers like “not high school evil, but truly evil” and “he looks like a lasagne with teeth”, even if they’re few and far between here. Hardly essential, but an okay diversion. ‘Heathers’ did the murder-revenge-school-assholes thing far better, and with more elan. It’s a little toothless, ironically.
Available to stream and buy everywhere.
