Jennifer’s Body (2009) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 20

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Shake, shake, shake, Senora. Jump in the line, rock your body in time.

While on the surface, Jennifer’s Body is a horror film, it’s more appropriately a film about adolescence and the confusion and pain that come with maturity. It features new and fresh takes on puberty and horror as seen through a feminist lens, having only become more potent in the intervening years.

Before Viewing

This trailer starts by stating that there’s one girl in the high school that every girl wants to be friends with and that every guy would die for. At the high school depicted here, that girl is some kind of monster. She attacks a boy on a date and also starts to come on to her nerdy-looking female friend. The friend tells another boy that this girl is evil. Just what is wrong with Jennifer’s Body?

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

The film opens inside a correctional facility, where Anita “Needy” Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) is being held. She tells the audience her story in flashbacks. Needy, a nerdy-looking girl, is best friends with Jennifer Check (Magan Fox), the hot girl in school. They go to a concert for an emo-looking, pop band, called Low Shoulder, at a local bar, Melody Lane. Jennifer hits on the lead singer, Nikolai (Adam Brody), who appears interested in her because he believes she’s a virgin (she’s so not). During the set, a fire breaks out in the bar. Some people are trapped and killed, but Jennifer, in a trance of some kind, escapes and is taken by Low Shoulder in their van. Scared, Needy calls her boyfriend, Chip (Johnny Simmons), and heads home.

That evening, Needy is shocked to see a bloody Jennifer in her kitchen. When Needy asks if she’s okay, Jennifer vomits up a black goo all over the linoleum and leaves. At school the next day, Jennifer seems perfect, while Needy and others are still in shock from the death of eight students, including Ahmet from India (Aman Johal). Jennifer shows no signs of trauma or shock. She comes on to football player Jonas (Josh Emerson), who is distraught over the loss of the team’s QB. She leads him into the woods, turns into a beast, and eats him alive.

At home, Needy’s mom (Amy Sedaris) has a horrible dream about Needy being crucified. Needy notices a change in Jennifer, who is acting more slutty than usual. She allows Colin (Kyle Gallner), an emo student, to ask her out. He meets Jennifer at a deserted house, where she disembowels him. At this same time, Needy is having sex with Chip and senses something terrible going on with Jennifer. Running home, Needy sees a feral-looking Jennifer on the road. Later, Jennifer shows up in Needy’s bed looking perfectly fine. Jennifer comes on to Needy, and they kiss before Needy shakes herself out of the trance she’s in.

Jennifer confesses to Needy what happened to her the night of the fire. The boys from Low Shoulder took her into the woods near Devil’s Kettle, a local waterfall and whirlpool, and sacrificed her under a waxing moon so they could achieve fame and fortune. Somehow, it didn’t fully work because Jennifer now has supernatural powers and needs to feast on young boys. She reveals her first kill was Ahmet from India. Needy finds information on occult rituals and believes that a succubus has possessed Jennifer because she was not actually a virgin. Needy explains all this to Chip, who thinks she’s having PTSD from the tragic events in town. Needy then breaks up with Chip for his safety.

The students get ready for the school dance, which Low Shoulder–now a popular band on a world tour–has agreed to play for free in support of the town’s tragedy. Jennifer intercepts Chip on his way to the dance, telling him how much she’s attracted to him. They go to a deserted rec center in the park, where Jennifer kisses him. At the dance, Needy “feels” Jennifer kissing Chip and runs to stop her. Jennifer attempts to kill Chip, but only wounds him, when Needy bursts in, telling her she was never a good friend. They fight, and Needy is saved when an injured Chip stabs Jennifer with the handle of a pool strainer. Wounded, Jennifer flees, while Chip dies in Needy’s arms.

Needy goes home and changes, knowing from her research that Jennifer’s powers are weakest when she hasn’t fed. She shows up outside Jennifer’s window and bursts in, attacking her former friend. Jennifer tries to use her demonic powers against Needy, but only ends up biting her in the shoulder. Needy pulls out a box knife and stabs Jennifer in the heart, killing her. Jennifer’s mother (Carrie Genzel) walks in at that moment, aghast. Needy is arrested and taken to prison. Needy reveals that the bite she received from Jennifer transferred some of the demon’s powers to her. She escapes from prison and finds the sacrificial knife used by Low Shoulder on Jennifer. Needy is picked up by a passing motorist (Lance Henriksen) who asks where she’s going. She tells him she’s following a band around the country, and tonight is their last show. Still images during the credits show the members of Low Shoulder being killed in their hotel room, as a blurry image of Needy is seen on a hotel security cam.

“It’s surreal, right? When just one person dies in Devil’s Kettle, it’s like time stops.” – Chip

Jennifer’s Body is a queer film, but it’s also a Queer film. It’s the first horror film for both director Karyn Kusama and writer Diablo Cody, two amazingly talented filmmakers. It’s a film that is horrifying on several different levels, dealing with aspects of social horror, teenage angst, and truly demonic evil. And it’s the next entry on 31 Days of Horror in a week, looking at horror films made by women. The week began yesterday, with the 1987 Kathryn Bigelow film Near Dark. The rest of the week will also feature female-led films from the 2010s and 20s in chronological order. This film feels like such a fresh approach to horror in the wake of intense and excessive horror of the time, like Hostel or Vacancy, and the existential dread of something like The Mist. It has its own tone and is not something easily confused with any other film. It feels like a cross between Mean Girls (or perhaps Heathers) and Carrie, but is also wholly original.

This film was Diablo Cody’s follow-up to her immensely popular and Academy Award-winning screenplay for Juno. Cody’s strong feminist values are on display in the script and were translated to the screen by director Karyn Kusama, who made an immense splash with her first film, Girlfight, and her second sci-fi adaptation of Æon Flux. In the realm of horror films about teenage girls, Jennifer’s Body stands out not only for its strong feminist themes but also for being unapologetic about the difficulty of being a young girl in the modern age. There are only a few horror films that have a female protagonist and address the specific trauma of adolescence in women. Carrie is a strong contender, as is the werewolf film Ginger Snaps, and to some extent, 2015’s The Witch. These types of film flip the tropes of standard horror films. Instead of young girls being hunted by a male antagonist, here the young boys have to worry about a killer female, specifically a demonic woman with razor-sharp teeth. But they shouldn’t worry too much, because she’s only into them for the meal.

Jennifer’s Body reinfuses modern horror with lesbian overtones. The overt use of sapphic visuals was something that was seen in horror films rarely, and when it was, it was often subtle or coded. This type of sexuality was more often a segment of the genre reserved for vampire films (The Vampire Lover’s) or witchcraft films (The Craft), but can be found sporadically in other horror films over the previous 30 years. Here, there’s nothing subtle about it. The two female leads share an intense kissing scene, which is premeditated by their backstory or the possession of the succubus–or both. Needy and Jennifer share a “sandbox friendship” which introverted Needy takes for, potentially, something more. She definitely has romantic leanings towards her best friend, but keeps them on the down low. She also has a sixth sense about Jennifer, being able to feel her kissing her boyfriend or killing Collin. This ability comes before the sharing of any of the demonic power, and could be a nod to them having a weak psychic link due to Needy’s love for Jennifer. Their friendship is so tight that their cycles have synchronized down to their brain waves. The depth of sharing concludes with Jennifer’s bite, which transfers some of her demonic power into Needy. It’s a bond that goes beyond sexuality and gets examined, in various ways, by the female filmmakers. There’s no doubt that if this were a male-driven film, the superficial lesbian sex would have featured more overtly and graphically. While Jennifer’s Body has sexualization of Megan Fox’s character, it’s not in the obvious ways. There’s no nudity shown as she opens her sweater before chowing into the unlucky boys she sets her sights on. Compare the way Fox was presented here to her debut in the Transformers film, where she is objectified almost as much as the car she poses over. Michael Bayt’s objectification of the actress and the character reeks of testosterone. Here, her plight of being the perfect girl and the school slut, is viewed from an alternate lens as a sad girl who goes about getting attention any way she can.

The title of the film, Jennifer’s Body, also objectifies the girl in the film. As the first thing audiences are presented with, the title puts a woman’s body in the forefront of their mind. Kusama and Cody lean into this presentation, casting Megan Fox, which leads viewers to further objectify the character. Reportedly, male public relations executives wanted to promote the film focusing on Fox’s sexuality, having her lead online chats at amateur porn sites. While reprehensible, it really showed that these executives had neither seen nor understood the film. The story reveals that the idea of Jennifer’s body is a myth, and something that was created by her as a front for the insecurities of adolescence. A scene of Jennifer applying makeup while staring into the mirror becomes a sad moment, as she smears foundation recklessly on her face. Like the makeup, which is a concealer, Jennifer puts on another persona in hopes that she will elicit love from others. She pleads with Low Shoulder that she’s a virgin, believing that the presumed innocence of the revelation will save her. It’s a lie, of course. She tells Needy earlier that she’s not even a “back door virgin thanks to Roman (Chris Pratt).” Unfortunately, her overt sexiness is perceived as covering for her lack of sexual experience, sealing her fate with Low Shoulder. Anyone who has seen the film and understands its message would never choose to objectify the character in such a way.

Thematically, the film is about trauma, specifically the trauma of being a girl going through puberty, with all the confusion that comes with it. Women’s bodies are constantly judged, and for girls whose bodies are still developing, this can be disastrous, psychologically. Needy and Jennifer are both coming to terms with their own sexuality, overtly displayed by Jennifer or subdued and secreted by Needy. But the idea of trauma is also manifested by the town as a whole, in characters like JK Simmons’ teacher, who mourns the loss of the students and teachers in the fire at Melody Lane. That horrific tragedy continues to be compounded as more boys die in terrible ways with no answers. What if this town-wide trauma represents a post 9/11 look at the effect of a tragedy on a community? The tragedy of 9/11 is mentioned by Jennifer, who purchases two tall shooters for her and Nikolai to share. These red, white, and blue alcoholic drinks, which she calls “tribute shooters,” are an example of some of the meaningless and insulting ways that the death of American citizens during the terrorist attacks of 2001 has been trivialized. In the film, Needy represents the people who were immediately affected by the accident, but who want to move on with their lives. Low Shoulder writes a song to benefit the victims (the town’s unofficial anthem), which gets constant airplay, keeping the psychological wound open. As things begin to resume normalcy, further tragedies occur, while other remembrances of the tragedy fail to cease (such as songs on the radio or newspaper stories). Groups, like Low Shoulder, benefit from keeping the tragedy apparent and “fresh.” They make money off their album sales, of which only 3% get donated to the families affected by the tragedy in Devil’s Kettle. It’s a modern take on cashing in on tragedy for personal gain.

Since its release in 2009, Jennifer’s Body has achieved a cult-like success. Having been misunderstood at its release, due to poor marketing by clueless executives, it has reached further potential within the queer community. It has also been re-evaluated by critics in the wake of the #meToo movement in the mid-20-teens. Sometimes films can literally be ahead of their time. 31 Days of Horror continues this week with further films by female directors, including another Karyn Kusama thriller, a remake, and an Academy Award nominee and winner.

Assorted Musings

• Jennifer’s Body is the third film this month with Lance Henriksen, after Scream 3 and Near Dark.
• When Jennifer comes onto Needy in her bedroom, she can be seen wearing an Evil Dead t-shirt. A poster from the same movie is in the background. That film involved a young girl being possessed by a demonic spirit.