Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

The cover to the Australian Blu-ray release of Jennifer’s Body

In the town of Devil’s Kettle live a couple of girls who have been friends their whole lives: superhot Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) and bookish Needy Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried). Needy has always been the foil of Jennifer’s whims, and more or less does everything she wants her to. Our story sees the two girls, under Jennifer’s instruction going to a local dive bar to see a band from the city, Low Shoulder, led by the quirky Nikolai (Adam Brody). After a fire burns the bar to the ground, a slightly in shock Jennifer takes up Nikolai’s offer of a ride in his band’s van. Needy does NOT take him up on the offer.

Jennifer (Megan Fox).

Later that night, Needy is at home when Jennifer turns up, covered in blood, and clearly in a worse state of shock that she was after the fire. Of course Needy immediately thinks that something horrible has happened to her, but what HAS happened is a lot worse than anything Needy could have imagined.

Jennifer is no longer the same girl as what she used to be: no, Jennifer is now a succubus, needing the flesh of men to sustain her beauty, and when she doesn’t consume, she starts to, well, go off. Unfortunately for Needy, their lifelong friendship has given them somewhat of a connection, and the burden of Jennifer’s secret plays on Needy’s conscience… especially when Jennifer’s deadly affections turn to Needy’s boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons).

What will she do? How did Jennifer get like this? Can any of them be saved?

A stressed looking Needy (Amanda Seyfried)

Diablo Cody, writer of indie smash hit film Juno, is responsible for the script for this film (and has a cameo as a bartender) and whilst her story and dialogue in that film was a pleasure, this feels a little forced, whether that is the fault of the performances or the script I am not sure, but it really feels like the script is deliberately trying to ‘speak’ to the youth of the time. I found that the script for Jennifer’s Body affected me the same way that Kevin Smith’s and Joss Whedon’s body of work did: at first I found them to be a breath of fresh air, but eventually found that someone had dropped an egg fart in my breathing space.

The director, Karyn Kusama, who previously directed Aeon Flux and Girlfight, has a wonderful eye. Visually this film is of a high standard:  the images of the waterfall, called Devil’s Kettle Falls, of which the town gets its name, which empties into in a glacial pothole in Judge C. R. Magney State Park in Minnesota, USA are as off-putting as they are amazing.  The whole film is a pleasure to look at, and not just because of Fox and Seyfried. Kusama has set some scenes whose colors should never work together, and yet somehow do.

 Every shot of the cast is amazing as well. Kusama has created this lush portraiture style that really shots the cast off well, and when you consider that cinema can potentially have a person’s face on a screen roughly 30 foot buy 70 foot, that’s brave because there is no hiding any imperfections one might have, and when you consider that for most actors their face is their fortune… wow!

The director has left some fun and occasionally clever visual cues here and there as well, such as a character playing a pinball machine called ‘Fire’ just before a fire breaks out, and the fact that the school is performing ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’, another tale of sisterly murder and betrayal. There are others, but I’ll let you find them.

Megan Fox deserves a lot of credit for the efforts she went to in this performance. She lost weight for the role, so when the succubus needs to look hungry, the make up applied makes Fox looks really sick and emaciated. It is a brave decision for a then young actress to allow herself to look repulsive when you consider that her acting ability may NOT be the reason for her popularity.

Also keep your eyes open for some interesting cameos, including everyone’s favorite artificial human Lance Henrickson, and J. K. Simmons sporting the ultimate hair-don’t!

I did enjoy this film, but essentially it was nothing more than a distraction with an OK story helped by Seyfried and Fox’s characters unusual connection. It seems to be a metaphor for when one grows out of their friends, and sometimes we do. Diablo Cody’s writing showed some real promise with Juno but feels a bit lackluster here: the direction and cinematography is a highpoint.

Score: **1/2

The menu to Jennifer’s Body

Extras:

There is a series of deleted scenes, titled Dead Boys, Jennifer Check is Gross, Needy Confronts Jennifer, Who’s Cindy Crawford, Needy Faces the Band and Ass, Gas or Grass. As expected, these scenes are superfluous and the film is better off without them.

We also have quite possibly one of the worst gag reels ever. Normally I get a bit of a laugh from these things, but nothing at all with these ones.

Score: **

WISIA: I think Fox and Seyfried are charming enough to make this a re-watcher, but not a regular one… honestly, this is probably the first time I’ve watched it in ten years.

Jennifer loves a yummy boy!

This review was done with the Australian bluray release of the film.

Preview: Midnight in the Switchgrass (2021)

Preview: Midnight in the Switchgrass (2021)

The cover to Eagle Entertainment’s release of the film

Film: I am very easily convinced into watching a film based on the stars involved in it, and even though the name ‘Midnight in the Switchgrass’ sounds like some nonsense from a Dr. Seuss book, I was able to overlook that when I saw that it starred Die Hard’s Bruce Willis, who I could watch in anything, and Megan Fox, an actor who I loved in Jennifer’s Body, Transformers (of which she was possibly the best thing) and her coquettish turn in the Simon Pegg flop How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, a film that I think is actually quite hilarious.

Megan Fox as Lombardo

This is the first film directed by Randall Emmett, a producer who has been involved in action movies like Boss Level and The Irishman, and was written (and produced) by newcomer Alan Horsnail, and is based on the murders of Robert Ben Rhodes, aka The Truck Stop Killer, a serial killer convicted of three murders, but is suspect of about 50 others, and who is still to this day in prison.

Bruce Willis as Karl Helter

Midnight in the Switchgrass tells of FBI agents Karl Helter (Bruce Willis) and Rebecca Lombardo (Megan Fox) who are hot on the tail of a sex trafficking ring when their investigation crosses paths with that of Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent, Byron Crawford (Emile Hirsch) who is investigating a series of missing/ murdered women.

Emilie Hirsch as Crawford

It’s around this time in the film that we are introduced to truck-driving family man, Peter (Lucas Haas) who has a horrible secret: he’s the murderer that Crawford is looking for!

Machine Gun Kelly as Calvin

The two agencies combine forces and information, some collected from sex trafficker Calvin (Machine Gun Kelly), and they start to close in, but will Lombardo’s undercover skills put her at risk?

This isn’t a bad film, but I do think it may be about 20 years too late. I’m sure this film would have been a pretty popular film then, but now, with TV shows that tell similar stories becoming so popular, it’s just out of time.

The heroes of the piece are definitely Hirsch with his wide-eyed cop who just wants to finish ‘the job’ of saving these young women, and surprisingly Machine Gun Kelly was pretty good as the scumbag pimp… though the person who watched this with me who knows his non-acting work better than suggested that his personality may not have been too different from his own. Lukas Haas wasn’t bad either but his creepy performance came more from his looks that anything else.

Megan Fox was ok in the film, but was more convincing in the victim role than the cop, unfortunately Bruce Willis felt like he just turned up to collect a pay cheque, and disappears half way through.

I have to point out one thing: there is a particularly unintentionally funny bit in the first few minutes where Fox has to subdue Machine Gun Kelly’s character, and I don’t know if it was that the actors afraid of hurting each other or the direction was lacking but I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a more awkward fight scene in a movie

This is the thing though; I really loved those thrillers from the late 90s and early 2000s like Taking Lives, Copycat and The Bone Collector, and even the ones a bit later like Alex Cross and Jack Reacher, so I actually quite enjoyed it. It is certainly not as good as some of those films, but if they made a sequel to this with Fox and Hirsch in it, I’d probably give it a go.

Score: ***

Lukas Haas as Peter

Preview copy was provided by Eagle Entertainment and watched via the Vimeo app.