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'Jennifer's Body': Kusama-Cody's Post-"Carrie" Horror Feminism Is Inept
The flashes of competence just emphasize the extent to which the film has no idea what it's doing.
[Cody's] glib teen-hip dialogue mostly feels like self-conscious splatter over a sorely lackluster scare flick.
Apparently, there's nothing like lean and hungry times to awaken the undead.
There are probably worse ways to go out than being devoured by Fox... but the film squanders all the fun from what could have been a hilarious, gore-filled romp.
Director Karyn Kusama finds resonant terror in details: the look Anita and Jennifer exchange before Jen's fateful ride, or a victim's last-minute ah-hah.
In trying to create a modern horror take on Mean Girls (2004), in which the protagonists redefine their rivalries through physical instead of verbal viciousness, she has merely delivered an updated, dumbed-down rehash of Carrie (1976).
With women calling the shots on this production, I'm sure we're supposed to think this is empowerment, but I'm not sure this is what feminism is really about.
Kusama and Cody don't fully succeed in making Jennifer's Body as clever as intended, but...they unleash some potent ideas and subvert the genre
Jennifer's Body's parts aren't working, so in its bid to become a clever cult movie, it ends up looking like it's trying too hard.
Just when we think we 'get' where Cody and Kusama are taking us, they thwart expectations and cinematic standards%u2026but not always in a good way.
Jennifer's Body is full of ideas, but it doesn't have much in the way of tonal control.
Jennifer's Body is not funny, nor is it sexy (the girls keep their clothes on), nor is it scary (it's all just special effects).
Come on in, the slaughter's fine.
Some weakly constructed things are better left asleep in their coffins.
Like a sloppy episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kusama seem less interested in cheap scares than in something more substantive: exploring the purgatorial existence of teens caught between being kids and adults.
Megan Fox needs to set her sights a little higher now that she has some clout in Hollywood.
By the time we know what's wrong with Jennifer's body, we just don't care. Movie just sucks the life out of horror fans. Paul Chambers, CNN.
Glossy teen horror-comedy is full of gore and sex.
Attempting to instill wit into a witless horror flick, Diablo Cody shows that her faux-hip dialogue does not a feature make.
Devil's Kettle might as well have been called Crock Pot.
Jennifer is dead-eyed and impassive, but a good actress might yet have played her in a lively, knowing way. Fox's dead-eyed impassiveness seems all too much her own.
The film is not without merit and has more corpses and red corpuscles than the anaemic Twilight series of vampire flicks.
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