Jennifer’s Body is a 2009 horror film distributed by 20th Century Fox. It stars Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, Adam Brody, and Sal Cortez. Diablo Cody is the writer and the director is Karyn Kusama.
The story centers around popular girl Jennifer and her best friend Anita, or Needy as she is called in the film. Needy is now a violent inmate at a mental hospital. After being thrown in solitary for kicking an orderly, Needy tells the story of how she got there. It all started one night when Jennifer invited her to a dive bar to see a concert by an indie band called Low Shoulder. After the bar mysteriously burns down and the girls escape, they encounter the band outside and Jennifer joins them, against Needy’s objections. Later that night, after she has returned home, Needy finds Jennifer, all bloodied and eating from her refrigerator. She vomits up the food and leaves quickly. The next morning at school, Jennifer shows up as if nothing had happened. She seems indifferent to the tragedy at the bar the previous night. Soon, partially eaten bodies begin to turn up. Due to untrue reports of Low Shoulder’s heroism at the bar, the band gains popularity and offers a free charity concert at the high school’s upcoming dance. Needy finds out that her best friend was killed that night after leaving the bar. Low Shoulder had sacrificed her as part of a Satanic ritual in order to gain fame and fortune, thinking she was a virgin. Needy soon discovers that since Jennifer was not, in fact, a virgin, a demon now possesses her body and must feed on meat in order to sustain itself.
In this film, we see the lengths some people will go to obtain fame and fortune, outside of actually working for it. Low Shoulder was a small independent band looking for popularity, but, instead of working hard and being patient, they were willing to sell their souls to Satan in order to get it right now. While this film didn’t literally depict the bandmembers as selling their souls to the devil, it was very strongly implied, especially in the sacrifice ritual. In my opinion, the idea of getting something that I didn’t earn and had to sacrifice my morals for is rather sickening.
Another feature of Jennifer’s Body that I found rather interesting was the fact that the demonic Jennifer only attacked and killed males. Some teenage girls tend to define themselves by how many boys they can get to notice them. It’s how they maintain their social status. Put simply, teenage girls use teenage boys to sustain themselves in the social circle of teenage life. It’s not all that different with Jennifer, except for the obvious fact that she uses teenage boys to feed off of instead of simply using them as social pawns, if you will.
To wrap, Jennifer’s Body is a great mix of science fiction and horror. If that’s what you want, I highly suggest you see this movie!
