"Jennifer's Body": Beefcake and Gore, but No Body

This week's Movie Night was Jennifer's Body.  I can't imagine why my partner chose it, or even researched something that sounds like a heterosexual porno.  Don't worry -- we aren't actually subjected to any lady parts.  But the movie is still awful.

A girl with the dumb name Needy (Amanda Seyfried) has been in a mental hospital or prison, we can't tell which, since "the killings began two months ago."  

No way you could get through a trial and found guilty or insane in just two months.  

After assaulting a guard/ attendant, she is placed in an impossibly Dickensian solitary confinement hole, and tells us her story.

Cut to Needy as an absurdly stereotyped high school nerd (everything but taped up glasses) living in an impossibly stereotyped small town, with a puppy-dog-cute boyfriend (Johnny Simmons, top photo; we see a lot of his body).  She has an unstated romantic relationship with Jennifer (Megan Fox), who is apparently the epitome of gorgeousness and therefore rules the school.  

Don't take the unstated romantic relationship as evidence that this movie is gay-friendly.  It is otherwise heteronormativ: every boy without exception, without exception, oozes on Jennifer.  And homophobic: "gay" is used as an all-purpose slur, most notably in the line "Something gay and evil has arisen in our town."

One night Jennifer talks Needy into going to a dive bar to hear a musical group no one has ever heard of.  The lead singer, Dirk (Juan Riedinger), thinks that Jennifer is a virgin, and therefore useful for his diabolical plan.  

How on Earth did he get the idea that this girl who is sashaying around the bar, flirting with every guy in sight and drinking enough booze to get Godzilla drunk, is a virgin?

Suddenly a fire breaks out, and everyone in the bar burns to death except for Jennifer, Needy, and the band, which whisks Jennifer away in their van.  

Jennifer returns later that night, bloody, laughing, and violent.  

And she starts seducing, killing,  and eating boys.  First Jonas (Josh Emerson, left), best friend of one of the guys who died in the fire. (While forest critters watch, for some reason).   We see his chest and belly as Jennifer undresses him prior to sex/death.

Then Colin (Kyle Gallner), a swishing, swaying, multiple-rings-wearing, make-up wearing straight guy.  Jennifer lures him to a deserted house in a scary, deserted housing development.  He actually has to break a window to get in.  I'd be running the other way.  (We don't see any of his body.)

Jennifer explains that the band sacrified her to Satan to further their musical career, but she didn't die.  She just gets very weak and sick, until she drinks some human blood; then she's super-strong and seductive.  But she won't hurt her best friend Needy -- yet.

Trying to figure out what's going on, Needy turns to the high school library's very well stocked occult section, and discovers what happens when you attempt to sacrifice a virgin to Satan, but she's not a virgin: a demonic being takes up residence in her body.  

Uh-oh, the big dance is coming up!  A perfect opportunity for Jennifer to eat every boy in sight.  Nonsense.  She only ever eats one boy at a time. 

 So Needy stalks the big dance (all boy-girl couples), while Jennifer is busily luring her boyfriend to a deserted swimming pool (overrun with weird alien vines).   Needy figures out the truth and bursts in just as Jennifer has killed a boy named Chip.  But he resurrects long enough to help subdue the demon. Almost.

Finally Needy accosts Jennifer in her bedroom, and ends up killing her, and being blamed for the fire and the murders.  Ulp -- Jennifer bit her, and you know what happens when you are bitten by a demon, right?  

This movie is not only homophobic, but racist.  At the tavern, Jennifer makes a big deal of Ahmet from India -- that's how he's listed in the credits.  Wondering what an Indian cock looks like.  Indian cocks look like cocks. 

There's also a teacher with a hook hand, for no reason.