“Jennifer’s Body 9” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gabbot
From 2009 to 2021, a lot has changed in cinema and the way we watch our movies. Especially in the horror genre, which has seen a rise in popularity, with directors like Jordan Peele stepping onto the scene. But what really shows about this new age of horror films is that there were some really good movies that never got the flowers they deserved. Number one on that list is the film “Jennifer’s Body.” Released on Sept. 18, 2009, the movie was met with shaky reviews from critics, and was for the most part forgotten about. That was before streaming services came about, and now that you can watch any movie you want with a click of a few buttons, the film has started gaining attention again.
The premise of this movie is two teen girls, in their last year of high school, have their friendship tested throughout the year. When Jennifer, played by Megan Fox, brings Needy, played by Amanda Seyfried, to a dive bar for her favorite band’s show, the bar burns down. Needy, Jennifer and the band are the only survivors. The night takes a turn when Jennifer goes with the band and Needy goes home, which is when Jennifer is sacrificed by the band to the devil. For the rest of the movie, we see Jennifer possessed by a demon that has only one thing she likes to eat: boys. The campy, Y2K imagery and writing in the film is a standout, and the iconic scenes are still used and paid homage to in other music videos and tv shows — most recently in Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” music video.
The best thing about this film is the female-driven force behind it. The director is Karyn Kusama, and the two leads in the movie are Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. But before I tell you about the success the movie is seeing years after its release, I am going to give some background as to why it did not see such success in its original release. The movie was made by women for women to view, but the media team in charge of putting out the trailer for the film ended up being a bunch of men who then made the movie seem like a mix of queerbaiting and soft horror porn.
According to an interview with IndieWire, Kusama and the screenwriter of the film, Diablo Cody, sat down and expressed their frustrations behind the marketing team. In it they said, “Because of the way the film was marketed, people wanted to see the movie as a cheap, trashy, exploitative vehicle for the hot girl from ‘Transformers.’ That’s how people insisted on seeing the film, even though I think when you watch it, it’s pretty obvious that there’s something else going on.”
They also explain in the interview how the marketing team would not listen to their worries about how the movie was going to be perceived by audiences because of the ideas they had. In the beginning of their plans for the movie, the marketing team even suggested that they make a fake amateur porn site that the character Jennifer would have been running before the film’s release, to make fans more excited. For obvious reasons you can now see, the audience meant for the film never saw it during the original release due to the trailer being only for the male gaze and not a woman’s.
As years went on, fans began to come back to the film and then began chatter on the internet. Fans would post on their social media scenes from the movie that are most popular, and it started to then grow a fan base. The fans started paying Megan Fox her respect for such an iconic performance, and one scene where Jennifer burns her tongue with a lighter is one that circulates the most.
The overall effect of this movie has been over a decade in the making, and as Megan Fox’s popularity has grown in the past year or two as well, the film has been getting more attention than ever. Recently, Megan Fox has made headlines with her new rocker boyfriend Machinegun Kelly, who have been quick to become Hollywood’s newest hit couple. Megan has been doing interviews this past year and has talked about her love for the film to this day, as it is her most iconic role, but it goes to show just how much the film meant to the people making it.