Jennifer's Body Blends Humor and Horror

Amanda Seyfried is the Real Star of Writer Diablo Cody's New Film

Sep 22, 2009 Chaz Holmes

Jennifer's Body is a clever mix of genres.

The aptly named Megan Fox is most likely the reason boys will see Jennifer’s Body but A.O. Scott of The New York times is correct in writing Amanda Seyfried is the film’s standout performer.

Seyfried, whose first major role was as the most vacuous member of the fictional high school clique The Plastics in 2004’s Mean Girls plays Needy Lesnicky, the geeky girl who is friends with the popular girl Jennifer’s Body and she manages to achieve the unlikely, by playing a familiar role, while making it seem different. Seyfried uses her large, expressive eyes well in conveying her realization that her best friend forever, or her BFF, as the matching necklaces she and Jennifer (Fox) wear has inscribed on them, may have something seriously wrong with her.

Fox does what she does best, which is vamp around in a too-hot-for-school fashion. The movie takes place in the small town of Devil’s Kettle, and hot chick is a relative term in small towns, so someone ranking as a five most places would rank at least an eight here, so Jennifer is perhaps putting forth more effort than she needs to since guys would agree she would rank a nine even is such hubs of female perfection as Las Vegas.

Humor and Comedy Come Together

The dark comedy succeeds in balancing its humor with the right amount of gore. With the exception of an early scene involving the discovery of one of Jennifer’s victims, there isn’t much on-screen carnage. Jennifer is seen reaching into an eviscerated corpse and scooping blood into her mouth as it runs down her chin, but there is none of the extreme, mean-spirited violence which is common in many modern horror movies.

Jennifer’s Body was written by Diablo Cody, who won an Academy Award for her Juno screenplay and her latest work wisely includes less of Cody’s characteristic oddball, hyper-current references, which became a signature of Juno. Cody, hopefully, is avoiding being pigeonholed into a Quentin Tarantinoesque realm of self-aware pop culture banter which takes precedent over story and filmmaking.

Fun B-movie Entertainment

This is a B-movie all the way through, but calling it one is not meant as criticism, but a compliment. Such campy films are always fun if done right and Jennifer’s Body succeeds in all the right ways. Seyfried and Fox work well together and the story of Seyfried’s milquetoast character discovering what’s wrong with Jennifer is the main element and she conveys the character’s thoughts and emotions expertly.

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Seyfried, right, and Fox