The 1980’s slasher movies with ensemble casts of young people will never get old. Halina Reijn, a Dutch actress and director who’s directorial debut – the 2019 thriller drama called Instinct, starring Carice van Houten (Game of Thrones series, Black Death) and Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin, Murder on the Orient Express), received a fair number of nominations at film festivals, has decided to go with the good old teen party massacre narrative (a la April Fool’s Day), written by Sarah DeLappe and Kristen Roupenian.
Please note, my dear reader, how I have already mentioned a number of women; Bodies Bodies Bodies is one of those movies that aims to tell stories of young women, having only three men as part of its cast, one of whom makes appearance that lasts just mere seconds.
I can’t say I’m in awe of films such as The Slumber Party Massacre, for instance, which features young women and a deranged male as a psycho killer. I would like to think that neither is Kristen Roupenian. Because Bodies does strive to take well known cliches and either use those to ridicule some Generation Z characters or turn the cliche upside down. This is why the film isn’t a waste of time in the first place. Let's take the role of Bee – Sophie’s (Amandla Stenberg – Rue in the original The Hunger Games movie) girlfriend, played by Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova as an example; a strike-first-ask-questions-later girl, who is reversing the usual order of things when it comes to gender and that who dies when. She also manages to give a new, expanded definition to the “stupid teen” trope in that she is doing certain things while lacking the information that’s vital in making the right decision – in Bee’s case this is closely tied to the understanding of value of human life.
Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Pete Davidson and Rachel Sennott in Bodies Bodies Bodies. Source
The question about what is stupid, and subsequent satire regarding all that constitutes a major part of Bodies’ story. Thus Jordan (played by Myha'la Herrold of Premature) is quick to demonstrate her erudition when it comes to Eastern Europe, when asking Bee in a rhetorical manner about whether the girl is from somewhere around Moscow, and doesn’t pay much attention when Emma (Chase Sui Wonders – director, writer and actress of Wake) is implying Jordan might be wrong; Jordan proceeds to state that she loves Dr. Zhivago. Meanwhile David (Pete Davidson of The King of Staten Island), the guy with a black eye, who lives in the mansion where this gathering is taking place, manages to demonstrate to Bee how a game of drinking and slapping is supposed to be played; at the receiving end there is a notably older chap Greg (Lee Pace – Ronan from the Marvel universe blockbusters), who then quits playing the game that has got zero intellectual value or need for any skills. Apart from moments like that a lot of the story is dialogue driven and reveals egocentrism and a general lack of trust in people one chooses to party with.
Lee Pace and Pete Davidson in Bodies Bodies Bodies. Source
Bodies is a film, which will be enjoyed by people who like intellectual misanthropy and satire as well as virtuosity in playing with cliches. It embraces diversity, but at the same time approaches its characters with little mercy. A24 doesn’t let down its core audience this time either.
Peer Ynt
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