Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Pete Davidson plays David, a young man about to hold a hurricane party for a group of his friends at his family home. He also seems to be a bit of a dick, but that becomes less of an obstacle for anyone watching the movie when David is found dead. The group immediately suspect the one other male still amongst them (Greg, played by Lee Pace), but they also turn against one another as the killer seemingly stays hiding in plain sight. Is it Sophie (Amanda Stenblerg), a recovering addict who has turned up with a new girlfriend, Bee (Maria Bakalova)? Is it Bee? Maybe David’s girlfriend, an actress named Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), was just tired of his shit. Podcaster Alice (Rachel Sennott) seems to be desperate enough to create such a drama. And then there’s Jordan (Myha’la Herrold), a badass who definitely seems the most capable of killing someone. 

Written by Sarah DeLappe, majorly reworking a more straightforward slasher movie screenplay by Kristen Roupenian, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a comedy that is looking to have people love or hate it. There will be very few people who end up in the middle, thanks to the relentless parade of negative character traits displayed by everyone onscreen. Nobody here seems to have many (any?) redeeming features. Which doesn’t mean they deserve to die, but it is certainly more fun to watch this group self-implode due to the consequences of their own attitudes and actions. The dialogue isn’t as sharp as it could be, but you get some superb lines that will make you laugh while reminding you of how awful the characters are, and it’s a shame that things seem to take a bit too long to really get going. Thankfully, the third act is so good that it’s easy to forgive the rest. And there’s an ending that ranks up there with one of the best I have seen in the past few years.

Director Halina Reijn does a good job with the material, and she has a team that works well in shooting most of the movie in darkness. The house is big enough for people to wander off to various parts of it while hunting for a killer, there are plenty of accessories that you would expect these characters to have to hand, and there’s a general level of consistency and care taken with the developing tensions and the placing of potential victims within the geography of the house.

Having Davidson as the first murder victim is great casting. He can quickly make a strong impression, good or bad, and his presence/character casts an appropriately large shadow over everything. Although very much an ensemble piece, and everyone does well with the material, Amandla Stenberg is an excellent nominal lead, sharing most of her scenes with a very good, and suitably bemused by the people around her, Bakalova. Sennott is a lot of fun, and Herrold revels in the strength of her character throughout. Pace is good, but gets less screentime than most of the women, and the only one who barely makes any impression, seemingly due to being almost forgotten by the script, is Wonders. 

I liked Bodies Bodies Bodies, but I was apprehensive during some of the earliest scenes. I didn’t like the characters, didn’t know who to root for, and struggled to even enjoy the “whodunnit?” aspect. Then I realised that was the point of the movie. As the situation starts to get worse, it is easier to see the characters all being hampered by their narcissism and selfishness, which makes it easier to just sit back and enjoy. And you have that ending, which is good enough to lift the whole movie up a notch.

8/10

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The Darkest Minds (2018)

Another month goes by, another YA novel is unsuccessfully adapted into movie form. This time it's The Darkest Minds. There's something about these teen-friendly film (wannabe-)franchises that often appeals to me, perhaps due to many of them being created with so many fun genre tropes in the mix (all of the ones I can think of right now are either horror, sci-fi, or whirling through a landscape of magic and fantasy, of course). Or perhaps it's just the case that the older I get, the more I try to pretend I'm still energetic and young at heart.

This particular tale starts with a MAJOR EVENT. It's not given any explanation, it's just a sudden occurence that immediately kills of a lot of the children on our planet and imbues those left behind with special powers. Some become smarter, some can use and control the electricity around them, some have telekinetic powers, and the most dangerous have the ability to brainwash others, even to the point of them being led towards harming themselves. Amandla Stenberg is Ruby, a young woman who is now viewed as one of the most dangerous of the child population. Her power is discovered while being graded in an internment camp, which she then has to escape from with the assistance of an adult (Mandy Moore) who seems to be wanting to help her. Unsure of who to trust and what to do, Ruby ends up teaming up with three other youngsters: electricity-wrangler Zu (Miya Cech), supersmart Chubs (Skylan Brooks), and telekinetic Liam (Harris Dickinson). The quartet end up heading towards a rumoured place of safety, headed up by a mysterious figure who has set himself as a leader of a resistance movement.

I suspect the biggest weakness here lies with the source material, by Alexandra Bracken, or the changes that have been made by Chad Hodge to adapt it into his screenplay. Although the main premise seems like a decent one, it's far too derivative and predictable once it gets past the opening act. It also feels a bit too haphazard, without enough scenes showing the ripple effect of the deadly initial incident, instead just giving us a couple of scenes to set up some main characters that will figure during important plot points. Although this is a film about a global crisis, you never get the feeling of that. I had, in fact, forgotten quite quickly that most of the other children around the world had been killed off in the opening moments.

Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson doesn't help. Everything is in place, but it's all assembled in a perfunctory way. The characters never feel well-rounded, they're just reduced to the tags given to them after the MAJOR EVENT, and none of the potential surprises in the plot are surrounded by enough distractions to make them work. There are a couple of good sequences that tease the horror genre ideas at the core, and a satisfying battle in the grand finale, but not enough to make up for the rest of the movie being so disappointingly generic.

Despite the weak direction and script, things could have been lifted a little bit more by the cast. Sadly, that doesn't happen. Stenberg tries, she just isn't quite good enough (although she's not bad). Brooks fares the best from the younger cast members, Patrick Gibson does well as the young leader assembling the young fugitives, while Cech and Dickinson fare the worst. The adults all do a bit better, with decent performances from Moore, Gwendoline Christie, and one of my favourite "big meanie" actors, Wade Williams, here portraying a . . . big meanie.

While not working with a huge budget, the money and people involved here ensure that it's far from unwatchable. It's just not surprising to find out that it underperformed, and probably won't be getting any of the intended sequels. But if it does end up getting them then I'll still end up watching them.

5/10

You can buy the DVD here.
Americans can get the Blu here.