Jennifer’s Body Reviewed

“It would be easy to play Jennifer one dimensionally” said Megan Fox of her titular role, with the emphasis very much on tit, in Jennifer’s Body. For a humble reviewer, hoping to stow away a few groats from a seminal review which any editor in his right mind would open the cheque book for, the quote was much like Jennifer herself, a prick tease. It leaps from the page and says ‘go on, use me, you know you want to use me, weave me into the sordid little critique, screw the F-ing analysis, make me look like a silly girl, go on – yeaaaaah, I want you to, go on, write me! Write me! Write me! Ohhhhh yes!!!’

Y’know, something like that.

So with a shotgun pressed hard against a trout’s oily eye as it spasms at the bottom of a barrel, it’s fair to say that Fox’s performance is not the most engaging aspect of Karyn Kusuma’s high school horror comedy. She is, as you’d expect, engorging in an obvious way, as the uber-popular lay armed with “smart bomb” mammaries and the measure of her sexual load. It’s a stretch to imagine Fox as a distilled drop of pure arousal – a walking web search with the content control taken off, but somehow she rises to the challenge.

It’s the old story about an ambitious but run of the mill, occult obsessed Indie band that, perhaps sensing that their tunes aren’t quite strong enough to break through, kidnap a girl they wrongly identify as a virgin and sacrifice her to the devil in return for a fanbase. Snow Patrol should sue. The victim’s lack of purity (well she did star in Transformers), means that she’s resurrected as a demonic man-ibal, while lifelong best friend ‘Needy’ – the dowdy hanger on with the better personality, tries not to panic, eventually spurned into action when her best friend starts to lick her lips in the direction of boyfriend Chip (a sweet and very likable Johnny Simmons).

Flirting with two dimensions and occasionally consummating the relationship, Fox is a good fit for the demonically possessed babe. So easily does the arrogance and invective come to her, that the film’s central conceit, namely that a demon could put his feet up on this particular possession, is nicely played.

Indeed, name a teenage boy has hasn’t ogled an unobtainable lovely who knows her place in the social hierarchy and consequently treats you like the regurgitated waste from a coprophile’s vomit and I’ll show you someone dreading a revelatory conversation with their conservative parents. But Jennifer’s Body recasts this hormonal black hole as a real man-eater and the result is a highly entertaining inversion of the classic stalk and slasher.

Diablo Cody, who put words into Juno’s smart mouth, delivers a witticism for every occasion, including the memorable description of the band’s van as “an ‘89 Rapist”. As with Cody’s previous script, it’s a sharp, dry affair, this time punctuated by the odd moment of schlock. Maintaining the balance between the laughs and the barfs is always a delicate assignment, but Kusuma is up to the task, imbuing proceedings with suitable unease.

You’ll come for Megan but you’ll stay for Amanda Seyfried’s Needy, whose show this truly is. Her sweet and occasionally sour turn as Jennifer’s put upon best friend lends a little credibility to a very unusual story indeed, that even within the bounds of its own warped logic, nearly breaks under the weight of its contrivances.

For all its kook, the quick witted screenplay only plays lip service to reinventing the constituent parts of a compound genre. Needy is a familiar geek-a-type, whose ugly duckling credentials are embodied in a pair of glasses that feebly cover an otherwise pretty face. Jennifer’s would-be ready meals are made from stock ingredients – the Jock, the Goth, the Geek, although the movie has fun indiscriminately offing them without prejudice. And then there’s the old Scream cliché about teen sex walking hand in hand with sadistic punishment, which gets an airing, not least in Jennifer’s predicament which is a direct consequence of her long standing open leg policy.

It’s to Diablo Cody’s credit as a graduate from the John Hughes School of adolescent understanding that all of these characters seem credible, rather than just ploddingly stereotypical. Many die but no one feels disposable, grieving parents and all. Such elements combine to make a satisfying high school romp with enough savvy to stimulate the brain as well as the loins. Exploring Jennifer’s Body is really quite a pleasure.

FilmShaft Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Jennifer’s Body (15) is released on November 6th in the UK and is released by 20th Century Megan Fox.