Jennifer's Body (2009 Film)

Jennifer's Body
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Karyn Kusama
Produced by	Daniel Dubieck Mason Novick Jason Reitman
Written by	Diablo Cody
Starring	Megan Fox Amanda Seyfried Johnny Simmons J. K. Simmons Amy Sedaris Adam Brody
Music by	Stephen Barton Theodore Shapiro
Cinematography	M. David Mullen
Editing by	Plummy Tucker
Studio	Fox Atomic
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	September 18, 2009
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$16 million
Box office	$31,556,061

For other uses of the word Succubus, see Succubus (disambiguation).

The Unrated DVD Box Cover for Jennifer's Body.

Jennifer's Body is a 2009 dark comedy and horror film written by Diablo Cody. The film is directed by Karyn Kusama and stars Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody and Johnny Simmons. Fox portrays Jennifer Check, a newly-possessed teenage serial killer specializing in "offing" her male classmates as best friend "Needy" Lesnicky, portrayed by Seyfried, strives to stop her. The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States and Canada on September 18, 2009 with an R rating in the U.S. and a 14A rating in Canada. The title is a reference to a song from Hole's album Live Through This. Another song from the album, "Violet", is played over the end credits.

Working with Cody again following their collabrative efforts on the film Juno, Jason Reitman stated he and his producers "want to make unusual films". Cody said she wanted the film to speak to female empowerment and explore the complex relationships between best friends.

Though the film had a disappointing performance at the North American box office, making $2.8 million its opening day and $6.8 million its opening weekend, it received mixed reviews from critics with praise for its "occasionally clever" and often witty dialogue combined with "fun performances".

This film's portrayal of a Succubus is not canonical in nature. Generally speaking, it combines several different myths and legends rather than focusing exclusively upon the succubus myth.

Overview

• Title: Jennifer's Body
• Director: Karyn Kusama
• Producers: Daniel Dubiecki, Mason Novick, Jason Reitman
• Writer: Diablo Cody
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Language: English
• Released : September 18, 2009 (USA)
• Runtime: 102 Minutes
• Budget: 16 Million
• Gross: 13 Million (As of October 1, 2009)

Plot

Insecure bookworm Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) and arrogant, popular flag girl Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) have been best friends "since the sandbox", although they share little in common. One night, Jennifer drags Needy to a local dive bar to attend a concert by indie rock band Low Shoulder, with eyes on its lead singer, Nikolai Wolf (Adam Brody). While flirting with Jennifer, Nikolai concludes that she is a virgin. As the band begins to perform one of their songs, a disastrous fire destroys the bar. Needy saves a somewhat intoxicated and shocked Jennifer, who, against Needy's wishes, ends up leaving with the band; they take her into the woods, where she learns that the band is worshiping Satan and that Nikolai intends to use her as a virgin sacrifice in order to become famous. However, as Jennifer is not in fact a virgin when Nikolai murders her, a demon spirit takes over her body with all her memories still intact after Nikolai and the band leave. Later that evening, Jennifer appears at Needy's house, covered in blood. She resists attacking a terrified Needy and instead roams into the kitchen, where she tries to eat food from the refrigerator; unable to digest the matter, she vomits a trail of "black ferromagnetic fluid". She then leaves the house in a hurry as Needy calls after her. Needy, left frightened and alone, believes something horrible has happened to Jennifer.

The following morning, Jennifer appears fine, and the small town is devastated by the tragic loss of the young people the night of the fire. A day later, she kills the school's football captain. A month after the incident, Jennifer is beginning to look pale and tired. That day, Colin (Kyle Gallner) asks her on a date and that night she kills him brutally while Needy and her boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) have sex. Needy, with sort of a psychic connection to Jennifer, senses that something awful has happened and leaves Chip's house in a panic. While driving, she almost runs over Jennifer, who is covered in Colin's blood and seems monster-like. Needy rushes home and tries to ease her horrifying thoughts of Jennifer by going to bed. There she finds Jennifer, who, after teasing her with a passionate kiss, explains what happened the night after she left the bar with the band. She even shows Needy what happens when she is "full" (as this is her most powerful state); she cuts herself across the arm, and the cut heals almost immediately. After suggesting that Needy is delusional and may need professional help when she questions Jennifer about this new power, Needy tells her to leave. Though initially reluctant to oblige her, Jennifer jumps out of the second story window and vanishes.

The next day at school, the news of a death of yet another classmate stuns the town. Needy goes to the occult section of the library to do research and finds out that Jennifer is a succubus, is weakest when she is hungry, and must eat flesh in order to sustain her life and appearance. She surmises that Jennifer is eating the bodies of boys to survive.

Needy decides she must stop Jennifer, as she fears Chip may be her next intended victim. All the while, the band that performed at the bar have become local heroes, having lied about helping people out of the fire. Needy tells Chip not to attend the dance and breaks up with him because she fears for his safety; he goes to the dance anyway, however, hoping to make up with her. As he is walking to the dance, Jennifer sneaks up on him, claiming she has always had romantic feelings for him and that Needy was cheating on him with Colin. Chip gives in to her, and they begin kissing. She later takes him to an abandoned site where a pool of water is present. Needy arrives moments later, to see Jennifer feeding on Chip. Needy jumps in the pool and attempts to drown Jennifer, but Jennifer begins hovering above the water as Needy helps Chip, who is bleeding from the neck, out of the pool. Jennifer and Needy begin to fight; as soon as Jennifer tries to attack her, Chip stabs Jennifer with a pool skimmer. Jennifer bleeds a little, but then escapes. Needy cradles Chip as he dies, both proclaiming their love for one another. Later, she attacks weakened Jennifer in her own home. As they fight, she pulls out a boxcutter and cuts Jennifer twice, in an x marking, across her stomach, which does not affect her. She then rips off Jennifer's "BFF" necklace, causing flashbacks of their childhood friendship, and stabs her in the heart with the boxcutter, setting her free. After Jennifer dies, her mother comes into her room and finds Needy on top of her daughter's body.

Needy is committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. Since she was bitten by Jennifer during their fight, she obtained some of Jennifer's supernatural abilities and murderous instincts. With these powers, she escapes the facility and comes across the knife that Low Shoulder's Nikolai used to kill Jennifer. Set upon revenge, she hitchhikes a ride, saying that she is following a band and that this "will be their last show".

As the film's credits start to roll, the band is first shown celebrating their wider fame and recording everything with hand-camera, then their hotel room is seen from photos taken by a CSI team. The place is covered with blood, band members' bodies are butchered and Nikolai is found with a knife in his stomach. The last scene of the film is from a surveillance camera and shows a crowd of fangirls rushing towards the band's room while a cloaked figure walks away. As the girls' horrified screams are heard, the cloaked figure looks into the camera; it is clear that this person is Needy.

Cast

Actor / Actress	Role
Megan Fox	Jennifer
Amanda Seyfried	Needy
Johnny Simmons	Chip
Adam Brody	Nikolai
Sal Cortez	Chas
Ryan Levine	Mick
Juan Riedinger	Dirk
Colin Askey	Keyboardist
Chris Pratt	Roman Duda
Juno Ruddell	Officer Warzak
Kyle Gallner	Colin Gray
Josh Emerson	Jonas Kozelle
J.K. Simmons	Mr. Wroblewski
Amy Sedaris	Needy's Mom
Cynthia Stevenson	Chip's Mom
Nicole Leduc	Camille
Aman Johal	Ahmet from India
Dan Joffre	Raymundo
Candus Churchill	Nutritionist
Carrie Genzel	Jennifer's Mom
Emma Gallello	Little Jennifer
Megan Charpentier	Little Needy
Jeremy Schuetze	Craig
Valerie Tian	Chastity
Emily Tennant	Gossiping Girl
Karissa Tynes	Other Girl
Eve Harlow	Goth Girl
Michael Brock	Goth Boy
Genevieve Buechner	Goth Girl #2
Adrian Hough	Colin's Dad
Gabrielle Rose	Colin's Mom
Michael Bean	Priest
Bill Fagerbakke	Jonas' Dad
Marilyn Norry	Jonas' Mom
Lucas MacFadden	DJ at Dance
Zoe Laliberté	Candlelight Vigil Singer
Chelsey Smith	Candlelight Vigil Singer
Whitney Chow	Candlelight Vigil Singer
Michael Orstad	Candlelight Vigil Singer
Ronnie Robinson	Orderly
Ed Anders	Orderly
Roxanne Wong	Patient #1
Diane Dutra	Patient #2
Maya Toews	The Creepy Hand

Production

Development

Jennifer's Body is the follow-up to writer and producer Diablo Cody's and Jason Reitman's collaboration efforts on Juno. In October 2007, Fox Atomic pre-emptively purchased the rights to Cody's script with Megan Fox to star. Peter Rice, who oversees both Fox Searchlight and Fox Atomic, brought in the project as Fox Searchlight had previously distributed Cody's film Juno. Mason Novick and Reitman's producing parter Dan Dubiecki signed as producers in November 2007 with plans to produce the film under Hard C, which is housed at Fox Searchlight. Reitman commented, "We want to make unusual films, and anything that turns a genre on its ear interests Dan and I." Karyn Kusama was announced as director in January 2008. Kusama said she signed on to the project because of the script. "I was blessed to read this script at a moment where the producers were meeting with directors and it just knocked me out. It was just so original, so imaginative," she stated. "That’s what it is about this script and the world is that it feels like a fairy tale gone psycho and I think that’s what most fairy tales actually started as." Additionally, Cody, Reitman and Kusama knew the film would be R rated. "The language alone is just so..." stated Cody.

In February 2008, a cease and desist was given to a writer at CC2K.com after they posted an advance script review for the film. The Latino Review also posted an advance review. At the time CC2K.com received their cease and desist order, questions were raised why Latino Review's largely positive script review was allowed to stay posted while CC2K was being forced by Fox Searchlight to remove their mainly negative coverage. Although Latino Review was later asked to remove their review, numerous other websites and blogs published their own critiques of the script.

Cody stated that when writing the script, she was "simultaneously trying to pay tribute to some of the conventions that we’ve already seen in horror, yet, at the same time, kind of turn them on their ear". One of her influences from the 80s horror genre was the film The Lost Boys. She she wanted to "honor that, and at the same time, [she] had never really seen this particular subgenre done with girls and [she] tried to do a little of both". Despite this, she said she had noticed that "the last survivor standing in the typical horror film is a woman" and that because of this she feels "horror has always had kind of a feminist angle to it in a weird way and, at the same time, it’s kind of delightfully exploitative". Jennifer's Body could play on both of these aspects.

Cody said she wanted the film to speak to female empowerment and explore the complex relationships between best friends. "(Director) Karyn Kusama and I are both outspoken feminists," she said. "We wanted to subvert the classic horror model of women being terrorized. I want to write roles that service women. I want to tell stories from a female perspective. I want to create good parts for actresses where they're not just accessories to men." Addressing "the male-dominated" horror genre, Cody said "a key reason for writing the film was to bring to the screen a new way of expressing the intensity of female bonds". "The friendships that I had as an adolescent had this unparalleled intensity," she stated. "I wanted to show how almost horrific that devotion can be. It's almost parasitic."

The producers decided to have the film open with the statement "Hell is a teenage girl" to reflect the horrors of puberty and that "the hellish emotions felt during high school often reappear as teenage girls mature into young women". Cody stated:

There's the scene where Jennifer's sitting alone smearing makeup on her face. I always thought that was such a sad image. She's so vulnerable. I don't know any woman who hasn't had a moment sitting in front of the mirror and thinking, 'Help me, I want to be somebody else.' What makes it extra affecting is that [Megan Fox] is stunning.

Cody crafted the story to follow a night that ends in a tragic fire, after which Jennifer is kidnapped and set up as a sacrifice which goes awry. Jennifer, now possessed by a demon and subsequently altered into a succubus, sets out on a bloody rampage in which she devours boys, and it is up to Needy to stop her. In sort of a reversal aspect of how puberty changes a girl's life, Jennifer must consume the blood of others once a month or she becomes weak and plain-looking. "It's a meek shall inherit the Earth sort of thing. I think it's always really satisfying and cathartic to see a character that was previously bullied become super human," said Cody. Cody said the script is not a reflection of any part of her own life, but that she is more like character Needy. "I would say I was more of a Needy than a Jennifer. I was never an Alpha female, and I've never gotten off with bullying other people," she said. "If I had to choose, I was definitely the one being shoved, not the one shoving."

The nickname "Needy" was given to Amanda Seyfried's character to underline the essentially condescending dynamic in Jennifer and Needy's high school relationship, as Needy often admires Jennifer and feels she needs her. Cody said "Jennifer is a product of a culture that pressures girls to be skinny, beautiful and just like movie stars" and that she "hopes the film inspires girls to take life into their own hands and do with it, what they want". "If I had gone to this movie as a teenage girl, I would've come out of it feeling totally inspired," she stated. "I would've wanted to write, I would've wanted to create and I would've felt like I watched something that was speaking to me."

Assigned to direct the film, Kusama said, "I think also a lot of horror is about femaleness – whether it’s Carrie or Rosemary's Baby." She said she feels "like there’s a lot of fear of the female or kind of celebration of it in some weird way and something about this movie managed to take the fear and the sense that it’s the female that ultimately survives and sort of marry that in a really interesting way".

Addressing her decision to have Jennifer and Needy be romantically intimate at one point during the film, which takes place in the form of a passionate kissing scene, Cody said she did not write the scene to score publicity. Speaking of the scene's media hype, she said that "if the two protagonists of the film were a guy and a girl and in a particularly tense moment, they shared a kiss, no one would say it was gratuitous" but "the fact that they’re women means it’s some kind of stunt. It was intended to be something profound and meaningful to me and to Karyn [Kusama, the director]". She further stated:

Obviously we knew people were going to totally sensationalize it. They’re beautiful girls, the scene is hot — I’m not afraid to say that. There is a sexual energy between the girls which is kind of authentic, because I know when I was a teen-aged girl, the friendships that I had with other girls were almost romantic, they were so intense. I wanted to sleep at my friend’s house every night, I wanted to wear her clothes, we would talk on the phone until our ears ached. I wanted to capture that heightened feeling you get as an adolescent that you don’t really feel as a grownup. (laughs) You like you’re friends when you’re a grownup but you don’t need to sleep in the same bed with them and talk to them on the phone until 5 a.m. every night.

Regarding the comedy aspects of the film, Cody said "the funny thing is, when I first set out to write this, I intended to write something very dark, very brooding, a traditional slasher movie" but "then I realized about a third of the way into the process that I was incapable of doing that because the humor just kept sneaking in. I have a macabre sense of humor" and "[a] lot of the things in the movie that are horrifying are funny to me. I’ve always said that I think comedy films and horror films are kind of similar in the sense that you can actually witness the audience having a physical release". Cody stated, "They’re laughing, they’re screaming, it’s not a passive experience. So, I actually think comedy and horror are kind of similar in that way."

Casting

Megan Fox was in negotiations to star as Jennifer since the film was announced in 2007, and was officially cast in October 2007. In February 2008, Amanda Seyfried was cast as Needy, the "plain Jane" best friend to Fox's character. Fox said the reason she agreed to the role was her love for the script. "I think what I loved about the movie is it’s so unapologetic and how completely inappropriate it is at all times," she said. "That was my favorite part about the script and about the character. It’s fun to be able to say the shit that she got to say and get away with it and how people find it charming." Asked how acting in a film like this is different than acting in Transformers, Fox said "there’s not distractions, like there’s no robots to distract you from whatever performance I do give. So, if it’s terrible, you’re gonna fucking know that it’s really terrible". She said "that, of course, is intimidating but I think the character was so much fun for me. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing" and "I was just trying to have fun with it and I felt like I was able to make fun of my own image as to how some people might perceive Megan Fox to be. I was just sort of flying freely and I hope some of it works".

In balancing out the film's horror with humor, Fox said she relied heavily on Cody's script and Kusama's direction to pull it off. "I have a very specific sense of humor, things that I think are funny aren't going to fly with middle America," she stated. "It's going to eliminate some of the audience, so you need someone there to tell you you can't do that."

Chud.com reported that the filmmakers were looking at actual rock band members Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte to portray male lead Nikolai Wolf. Also considered was actor Chad Michael Murray. In March 2008, actor Johnny Simmons was reportedly cast as Nikolai. However, Adam Brody was officially cast in the role of Nikolai, while Simmons was then given the role of Chip. Brody said he did not do his own vocals. "My singing voice is still going through puberty," he said. "They gave me a singing lesson or two, and it’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s not anything anyone would choose to hear."

Design and effects

Handling the film's special effects was KNB EFX GROUP. For the physical aspect of Jennifer's demonic form, the creators used different techniques. "I actually wasn't in [the makeup chair] that much because they created an entire head. They did a live cast of me from the shoulders up. They created me and then put the teeth in," stated Fox. "To save my face, they had a photo double that would come in and do most of the crazy monster makeup - they would do that on her. So it would go from me, then in post-production it would somehow go to her and the fake head. They would mix them all together."

For "the vomit scene" where Jennifer has just arrived at Needy's house after being murdered and inhabited by a demon, Fox said the liquid she was given to spit out "was actually ...chocolate syrup initially". "We did a few takes where I would just do this scream and sort of puke Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Scratch the Hershey’s because I don’t want to endorse that or anything," she stated. "And then, special effects did a rig that clamps onto my ear and you revisit it in the pool scene which you probably haven’t seen, but it happens again later on in the movie." Fox said it "clips on. It goes around the back of my ear and then I bite down on it on the side of my face, like this, and it projectiles. It’s a tube..."

Directing the scene, Kusama said, "It’s kind of old school." Fox followed up, "Yeah, and it projects whatever that material was. I’m not sure. It was pretty intense. I think it was worse for [Seyfried] because she’s the one that got puked on. I was the one doing the puking.

For more practical special effects on the set as opposed to CG, Kusama said it "was a choice that we all sort of made organically". She said they appreciate "those kind of effects in older movies and [questions] sometimes how much more effective it is to use a ton of CG" and that they "always started with a practical effect and then moved forward from there to lay a groundwork of something that’s actually physically, materially there". They found this to be more enjoyable.

Cody appears in the fire scene in the barroom. "To me, I am afraid of fire and fire technics and all that stuff which is why I don’t know why I asked to be in the bar scene because I’ve never exploded before," she said. She had asked to be set on fire. "That was me trying to conquer a fear. By the way, they would not allow me to do a full burn for insurance purposes, even though I argued that Burt Reynolds had done it once," stated Cody. "But apparently he got really hurt, so they would not let me. To me, there’s nothing more horrifying than being stuck in a claustrophobic space as it is burning down so, to me, it was more like tapping into a personal fear. That’s not tough."

Filming

In late 2007, Fox Atomic had plans to film Jennifer's Body before a possible writer's strike. However, when the Writers Guild of America strike began, shooting was then moved to March 7, 2008 in Burnaby, British Columbia, specifically at Robert Burnaby Park near Cariboo Hill Secondary School. Some of the scenes, particularly those situated in a school setting, were filmed in local Vancouver-area schools, such as Vancouver Technical Secondary School, Langley Secondary School and University Hill Secondary School.

Fox said that while filming her highly anticipated kissing scene with Seyfried that Seyfried was "extremely uncomfortable" but that she herself was not. "I feel much safer with girls, so I felt more comfortable kissing [Seyfried] than kissing any of the other people that I had to kiss," she said. Seyfried's uneasiness in the scene caused "giggling fits" between takes.

Music

Music was incorporated as an essential part of the film; there are "very specific bands" placed in band posters in some parts, such as in the selection of the band poster on the walls of the bar. Kusama said "[t]he music was a huge component of the movie" and this is first evident with "the songs that we see and hear performed, but then, just the vibe of the movie actually". She said, "As the movie progresses, it becomes a pretty clearly music-oriented movie. It’s sort of a youth movie. Some of those bands were totally made up and some of them are not."

Reception

Reviews

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports the film as holding a 42% overall approval rating with critics based on 113 reviews, with a generally negative 38% approval rating from "top" critics based on 26 reviews. The site's general consensus is that "Jennifer's Body features occasionally clever dialogue but the horror/comic premise fails to be either funny or scary enough to satisfy". At Metacritic, the film holds a generally mixed score of 47/100, based on 28 reviews, while IGN gives the film 2.5 stars out of 5.

Film critic Roger Ebert enjoyed the film, dubbing it a "Twilight for boys" and saying "as a movie about a flesh-eating cheerleader, it's better than it has to be". He said that within Cody there is "the soul of an artist, and her screenplay brings to this material a certain edge, a kind of gleeful relish, that's uncompromising. This isn't your assembly-line teen horror thriller". Additionally, he complimented Fox as "[coming] through" in her portrayal and "play[ing] the role straight". He gave the film three out of four stars. Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail gave the film three out of four stars as well. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone stated it is "Hot! Hot! Hot!" and that "Director Karyn Kusama is torn between duty to female empowerment and slasher convention". He credited Fox with showing "a comic flair" that Transformers "never investigated". Tom Charity of CNN said "[the] last time a horror flick tried for a distinctly female point of view the result was Twilight, which was more of a wan gothic romance than a chiller" and "Fox makes a convincing vixen, callously picking up victims whenever her luster begins to fade. It's not hard to imagine she can have anyone who takes her fancy". Charity credited the dialogue as "bitingly smart, funny teen-speak ...along with sharp pop culture references". Dana Stevens of Slate praised the film for being "luscious and powerful, sexy and scary, maddening at times, but impossible to stop watching" and a "wicked black comedy with unexpected emotional resonance, one of the most purely pleasurable movies of the year so far". Elle's Karen Durbin said the film not only puts "a fresh spin on female-centric pop genres but also own[s] them outright" and is "rich with first-rate performances". The Miami Herald's Rene Rodriguez likened the film's "[effective exploitation] of the genre as a metaphor for adolescent angst, female sexuality and the strange, sometimes corrosive bonds between girls who claim to be best friends" to Brian De Palma's 1976 film Carrie. She applauded the film for being fearless when delving into the subject of teen sex and for reversing the tradition/idea that only "bad girls have sex when they're 16 [and the] good ones — those who, like Needy, do their homework and are responsible — never slide past first base". Nick Pinkerton of Sci Fi Weekly called Fox and Seyfried's lesbian kissing scene "the best close-up girl-girl liplock" since Cruel Intentions, and A. O. Scott of The New York Times concluded "the movie deserves — and is likely to win — a devoted cult following, despite its flaws" and "[these flaws] are mitigated by a sensibility that mixes playful pop-culture ingenuity with a healthy shot of feminist anger".

Giving a partially negative review of the film was Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York, who said the "movie has a centerfold sheen to it — and some lesbianic soft-core flirtation to match — as its plot dives deeply into Twilight-esque heavy-melo meltdown in the last act" and that "Cody throws one too many losses at Needy; the screenwriter loses her satiric way about halfway through. But for a while, this has real fangs". Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post said, "There's a certain kooky, kinky fun to be had with Jennifer's Body" but that "[a]dmittedly, this is the stuff of lurid adolescent distraction, not great cinema" and "is strictly a niche item but provides a goofy, campy bookend to Drag Me to Hell on the B-movie shelf. Watch it, forget it, move on". San Francisco Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub stated, "Enjoy the film for its witty dialogue and fun performances, but know that there isn't a single good scare. An episode of Murder, She Wrote has more thrills." Hartlaub felt the film is not bad, is "almost always pleasing" and that Fox "proves that she has some [acting] range" but "the chances that it will be somebody else's pop culture reference 27 years from now are slim to none". Michael Sragow of Baltimore Sun described the only "perfect aspect" of Jennifer's Body as being its title. "No one is going to like this movie for its brain," he said. Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips called Fox "a pretty bad actress" who "doesn’t seem to get Cody’s sense of humor. At all". He reasoned the "movie’s partially redeemed by Seyfried, who makes her character more than a repository for audience sympathy" and "her make-out scene with Fox is handled with more suspense and care than anything else in the movie". Claudia Puig of USA Today stated of the film, "Jennifer's Body is not as hot as you hope it would be", and Joe Neumaier of New York Daily News said, "Fox merely needs to look either vacant or evil, which the Transformers boy-toy does spookily well" but "[w]ords and story are still the lifeblood of a movie, and Jennifer's Body is filled like a Twinkie with half-fleshed-out ideas". Additionally, where others praised the film's dialogue, MSNBC's Alonso Duralde called the writing lazy and "[w]orse still, all of Cody’s trademark pop-culture–infused dialogue stands out as artificial and precious". Jennifer’s Body, he said, wants "so badly" to be a Heathers-esque dark comedy, "but its shortcomings makes you appreciate why that earlier film was so great". Ty Burr of The Boston Globe also said the film wants to be like Heathers, and reminded him "a lot" of Heathers but the only scene in the film that "actually feels dangerous" is when the possessed Jennifer initiates a passionate, long kiss with Needy, which the film "very, very nervously backs away from" and that "Jennifer's Body falls into the dispiriting category of dumb movies made by smart people" which, in this case, is "a glibly clever writer and a talented director who think a few wisecracks are enough to subvert the teen horror genre".

Box office

Though the film was expected to pull in a significant number of the late teenage/young adult audience, particularly males aged 17 and older, while Cody hoped for a large female turnout, it earned a "disappointing" $2.8 million on its opening Friday and $6.8 million its opening weekend at the North American box office; the film placed #5, while 3D animated film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballsplaced #1 with 30.1 million. Produced for $16 million, Jennifer's Body did manage to attract the sizeable female audience Cody wanted; 51% were female, with 70% of patrons under age 25. The film had been expected to benefit somewhat from its heavily marketed lesbian kissing scene between Fox and Seyfried, which, in addition to Fox being in the film, was thought to entice and successfully attract male viewers. IGN stated that such a scene is not as shocking as it was in past decades and cannot be expected to significantly pull in an audience. As of September 24, 2009, the film has grossed $8,805,814.

Box-office analysts debated the film's underperformance. Analyst Jeff Bock, of Exhibitor Relations, reasoned the film underperformed at the box office due to two reasons; the first, he said, is the genre. Bock stated that Americans get horror and comedy, but with the idea "of those two things together in one place, people suddenly get very dumb". "The horror-comedy genre is the toughest sell in Hollywood," he said. He noted films Tremors, Slither, Shaun of the Dead, Eight Legged Freaks and The Evil Dead series, and said that while many of those are considered critical and business successes, "none of them have brought in the megabucks that a simple horror or comedy can". In addition, he labeled the Scream franchise as more "straight-up horror" than comedy.

Despite other R-rated horror films having centered around teenagers, some such as Scream having been successful, Bock said the second reason Jennifer's Body underperformed at the box office is the R-rating, which he described as a "killer" for the film. He said the film is set in high school and "sounds like the perfect package for teens" but that "the R rating banned many teens from the theaters" and the studio was left with "an R-rated film marketed to whom, exactly?" Nicole Sperling of Entertainment Weekly felt that it was a slow and disappointing weekend for the box office in general; 3D animated film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was steep competition, and with low box office performances by the Matt Damon film The Informant! and Jennifer Aniston film Love Happens, she concluded that this may support "the current hypothesis floating around Hollywood, that movie stars no longer matter" and that it takes more than a name to open a film. Hollywood.com box-office analyst and President Paul Dergarabedian said "the poor numbers don't mean Fox can't open a movie". "It may be a matter of just choosing the right projects for her," he told the Associated Press. "She's trying to find a world beyond Transformers, and she will. She's young and has a lot of promise."

Graphic novel

Cover art for Jennifer's Body graphic novel, by Eric Jones.

As a tie-in to the film, Boom! Studios produced a Jennifer's Body graphic novel. The novel expands on the film's universe and Jennifer's murders of the boys. It was written by Black Metal's Rick Spears, with the first nine pages illustrated by Jim Mahfood (Clerks). Two covers, in Fox's likeness, were designed; one for the direct market by Eric Jones (available only in comic specialty stores), and the other by Frank Cho for the mass market focusing more on "hellish Jennifer stories" with art by Mahfood, Hack/Slash's Tim Seely, DMZ's Nikki Cook, and Popgun's Ming Doyle. The novel was released in August 2009.

The novel features less of Jennifer than the film, but does capture her "going in for the kill" several times. It focuses heavily on following her soon-to-be victims and provides information on their personalities not elaborated on in the film so that readers can better conclude whether the boys deserved to be murdered. The novel consists of four chapters, with a prologue and an epilogue, with art provided for each by different artists. Each one follows a different boy and what is happening in his life just before Jennifer kills him.

On creating the story, Spears stated, "The best part for me as a writer was to show some events from the movie from a different point of view, sort of like Rashomon for you Kurosawa fans. And with comics we can get into the character’s heads in a way that works well in comics and novels more so than in film." He stated, "...I was using the medium to change what we really know about these characters and twist around what we see in the movies. All the academics aside, it’s also very funny and gore splattered."

Spears stated that while writing the stories, the film was still being made and he had not seen any of it at the time. He mainly learned about the characters through the script. "I got to read the screenplay. It was kinda crazy writing characters that were being changed on set and in the editing process. I had to bob and weave to keep up but that was all part of the fun," he said.

See Also

• Jennifer's Body (Screenplay)

External links

• The original source of this article at Wikipedia
• Jennifer's Body - Official Site
• Jennifer's Body at the Internet Movie Database
• Jennifer's Body at Allmovie
• Jennifer's Body at Box Office Mojo
• Jennifer's Body at Rotten Tomatoes