she's evil... and not just high school evil.

Jennifer’s Body (Kusama, 2009) is really nothing more then a movie featuring Megan Fox’s face.  And sure, it’s a pretty one, but I was hoping for something more.  The film tries to be embody both horror and dark comedy simultaneously, but isn’t very successful at either.  The screenplay had many holes and the dialogue came across as extremely cheesy at times, which was fairly surprising considering it was written by Diablo Cody, who won an Academy Award for her original screenplay, Juno (Reitman, 2007).  “[Cody's] glib teen-hip dialogue mostly feels like self-conscious splatter over a sorely lackluster scare flick,” commented Los Angeles Times critic, Robert Abele.

      If you haven’t seen any of the previews, I’ll give you a quick synopsis.  The film stars Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody, and Johnny Simmons.  Jennifer Check (Fox), a small-town high school student possessed by a hungry demon, transitions from being “high school evil” (i.e. gorgeous, stuck up, and ultra-attitudinal) to the real-deal evil/evil.  As Jennifer begins feasting on her classmates, guys who never stood a chance with the heartless babe take on new luster in the light of her insatiable appetite.  Meanwhile, Jennifer’s lifelong best friend Needy (Seyfried) must step-up to protect the town's young men, including her nerdy boyfriend Chip (Simmons).

Apparently the film is meant to portray female empowerment and the importance of friendship, but I definitely did not get that from watching.  There were a few clever lines and some interesting scenes, but overall I was disappointed.  For a horror film, it was not scary enough, and for a dark comedy it wasn’t dark or funny enough.  As Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress poignantly remarked, “Never as frightening as it should be, and it's certainly never as hip and funny as it would like to be, but neither is it a disaster.”

The film currently has a 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is actually higher than I had expected.  But looking at Box Office Mojo, the numbers aren’t too good.  It opened last week with only $6.8 million and after 10 days in theaters has an estimated total of about $12.3 million.

Has anyone seen it?  What'd you guys think?

Oh, and did anyone catch Megan Fox on SNL, Saturday night?  Most of the skits seemed to be based on the fact that she is *gasp* attractive, but it was ok overall.  I did enjoy the flight attendant skit.