In 2009, the director Karyn Kusaman premiere Jennifer’s Bodya teen horror comedy that mocked many stereotypes of the genre, adolescence, satanic panic paranoia, and featured Megan fox as its protagonist.
At the time, the movie wasn’t exactly successful and even came to be considered a bad movie (even now it has a 5.4 out of 10 rating on IMDb), but the perception changed over time and eventually it was understood that the problem was that it was ahead of its time and that perhaps we misjudged it.
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The film takes place in a small town in the United States called Devil’s Kettle where nothing ever happens, until a rock band decides to go play at a local bar and two friends decide to go see them. Jennifer (Megan Fox) he wants to conquer the singer of the band, who does not have good intentions.
There, Needy (Amanda Seyfried) she discovers that the singer wants to take her friend away and everything turns to chaos when the place burns down. They manage to get out, but so does the band and the singer (Adam brody) convinces Jennifer to go with them, and everything turns demonic from there.
Jennifer reappears covered in blood and wounds, with her clothes torn and talking nonsense, and soon Needy realizes that her friend is not the same as before.
Jennifer’s Body and why it’s a better horror movie than we remember
Do rock bands have pacts with the devil?
The film plays with the idea that rock bands have demonic pacts and that some of them even hide satanic messages that you can hear if you play their music backwards.
Something similar happens here Rosemary’s’ Baby, where a ritual and a sacrifice must be performed in exchange for success and fame. Rosemary’s husband offered her up to a demon cult to make it as an actor, while Jennifer completely ignores the warnings of her friend (and the Stranger Danger) to follow a band that wanted her for something similar.
But here everything is done with more humor and that is what makes this story different, although now there are many similar ones.
Sex, madness and other “sins”
Another interesting element of this story is that it talks about sexuality and how it can be demonized as well, and here you can see it through the attraction that Jennifer feels for the singer of the band, which makes her ignore all the red flags.
But not only that, throughout the film, she also uses sex and sexuality to attract her victims, taking the figure of the woman to the extreme. Femme Fatale and that crazy idea that men can fall under the “spell” of bad women, something like what we saw in witch hunts. Of course Jennifer is some kind of demon, but that’s not the point.
“Sex is bad” or at least that is something that they have wanted us to believe at different points in the story, but here it is also played with as a metaphor for danger, desires (which are not only sexual), and the desire to have or be something else.
The dynamic between Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox
Here we have two protagonists from different sides of the story, they begin as friends where a power game existed since they were children, and end up separated after the incident that leads Jennifer to become a demon, and forces Needy, the “invisible” “of the relationship”, to become a kind of hunter to stop her friend.
It’s just that no one seems to care about the truth, Needy is practically called crazy when she tries to talk about it and accuse the gang, so she finds herself on her own, having to find her own way to stop her friend, while she’s dealing with it too. with the guilt of not having protected her.
There is some reality inside all of that
What happens with Needy and Jennifer reflects many real issues, such as the fact that many victims are not believed or heard when they speak out, or the fact that someone who expresses their sexuality openly and freely can run into many lawsuits.
There’s a bit of talk about not being able to trust strangers who can hurt you, what we’re willing to do to achieve our dreams, and the ways we hurt the ones we love the most (like Needy’s boyfriend when he doesn’t believe in her). ). It is a film that also explores the adolescent experience and the obstacles that are found on the road to adulthood,
Devil Cody’s Magic
Jennifer’s Body It has a great story and script that was written by Devil Codywho a year earlier had written the script for the film Junefor which he won an Oscar, and repeated his success with films like Tully and Young Adultswhere, in one way or another, the complexities of the human experience are discussed, and the obstacles we face in life, which helps to create a connection between the audience and the protagonists.