Jennifers Body

In my review for Jennifer's Body, I contextualized the film in a way that may be construed as hyperbole. While certainly viewing the Karyn Kusama-directed sophomore writing effort is, in fact, not worse than death, I can only imagine the similarity is unmistakable. Most of my time in the theater was spent with my hands placed upon head, jaw hanging open in abject bewilderment over the armageddon of suck that was unfolding on the screen before my eyes.

Naturally, there is bound to be someone who disagrees with me (though I don't really know how, since I'm always right), and that someone is Corey from the fantastic blog Evil on Two Legs. Corey, in his infinite yet questionable wisdom, considered Jennifer's Body to be the best horror film of 2009. Of course, this means debate! After about four attempts to record the damned thing, the stars aligned and Corey and I engaged in what ultimately turned out to be a fairly in-depth and analytical discussion over the relative merits of the film.

And I only dropped the f-bomb a few times

Best of the New Releases: Jennifer's Body, Carriers
I had it in for Jennifer's Body before it even came out. Megan Fox put an obvious target on its back, but what really had me steering clear of the flick was the film's initial Red Band trailer. The filmmakers (director Karyn Kusama, writer Diablo Cody, and producer Jason Reitman) attached a note to the release of said trailer stating that the studio didn't want to put out a red band but they knew it was what the horror fans wanted and blahblahblah. Short story shorter, the red band trailer had no nards and looked awkward to boot.

But you know what? I actually kind of dig Jennifer's Body. Not enough to make any kind of formidable stand against the legion of horror fans who think it's dreck, but I do think it is good enough to warrant a curious watch. It's probably the best marriage of role and performance Megan Fox will ever have, Amanda Seyfried is awesome as always, and its got a core female dynamic that's kind of rare in horror. Then again, it's kind of tame in the actual horror department (I doubt the extra four minutes of the unrated version add any teeth), which may make it a chore to suffer through for anyone who can't stand Cody's writing. Still weighs out to be worth a Netflix in my book, though.

By Eugene Novikov

Jennifer's Body is getting panned in some circles for the alleged tragic flaw of a horror movie not being particularly scary. They're mostly right -- Diablo Cody's genre follow-up to Juno doesn't really elevate the heart rate very often. But I think that's because it tips to the "high school" side of the "high school horror" balance; it's more of a teen drama with a bloody metaphorical twist than a full-on horror flick.

That may disappoint some fans, but it sort of gets at why high school horror movies work so well, so often. It's a cliche that "high school is scary," but movies that make a connection between the reasons high school is scary in real life and whatever monstrosity happens to be stalking or haunting the characters are the ones that tend to leave the biggest impression.

In honor of Jennifer's Body, which I think will be unjustly maligned in the weeks to come, here's a list of some high school horror movies that figured this out -- and a few that were just plain fun.

1. Ginger Snaps - The movie's IMDb plot summary helpfully begins: "This film uses werewolfism as a metaphor for puberty." Well, yeah -- though it is generally considered polite not to lead with something like that. (Sorry.) But it's not all allegorical navel-gazing. Ginger Snaps is an elegant, harsh piece of teen horror that brutally plays on teenage insecurities, and is a pretty good werewolf flick too. It's a shame that director John Fawcett largely disappeared into the (better-paying, I hear) abyss of television.

Read the rest at Cinematical!

First, a disclosure: In both its red and green band trailers I think Jennifer's Body looks like a lot of Idle Hands channeling fun with a coating of Tamara's hot girl gone evil kills all the boys sexiness. I've got nothing against the production.

However I am a little confused as to why the red variant, which was the draft the director/writer/producers felt was better suited for horror fans, earned a red band and yet this newly released green cut of the trailer, which will be playing in front of Bruno, shows just as much visually questionable material and yet it gets the "Approved for Appropriate Audiences" green backing.

I'm not confused as to why it got the red band. Megan Fox dropped an F bomb in the same coital context that would bump any PG-13 film to an R, that's an MPAA no-no. I am confused as to how that trailer is better tailored to horror fans over the green trailer. Both play up Fox' sexuality in slow motion, both show her killing people, and both show her holding a lighter under her tongue. The only substantial difference found in the "appropriate audiences" trailer is that it shows more character and plot whereas the red band is full of silly.

That's what has me worried about Jennifer's Body. Click on to watch the non-horror audience green trailer, which just debuted on Yahoo, and see what I'm talking about.

By William Goss

A little more waiting, a little less waiting. That's just how this game goes.

Bad news first: Overture's space-set sci-fi/horror Pandorum has been bumped back a fortnight to September 18th, now putting it opposite the horror comedy, Jennifer's Body, written by Diablo "Juno" Cody and starring Megan Fox. I haven't heard the best things through the grapevine about either film, but I suppose it's slightly less competition than Carriers and Gamer on the 4th.

Better news then? Summit slasher Sorority Row has brought itself up three weeks from October 2nd to September 11th, although it now contends with Kate Beckinsale thriller Whiteout (which probably won't draw as much, now that I think about it). I'm not sure who's going to fill that prime October 2nd spot, or maybe Scorsese's Shutter Island is going to score across more demographics than I had previously considered.

Seriously, though, from the last weekend of August with Halloween 2 and Final Destination 4 on through Halloween, it looks like there'll be no shortage of genre offerings around this fall (even with Lionsgate's Daybreakers moving back to January 2010 and Paramount's long-shelved Case 39 disappearing yet again).