🎵 Ooooh! Bodies on the outside, baby! Bodies on the inside, baby! 🎵 – Little Birdy
Yeah, boi! If this movie wants to present another teen murder mystery in the vein of Scream, then colour me keen! This is Bodies Bodies Bodies. Six sexy teens, and an older gentleman, come together at a rich mansion to weather out a storm. They drink, they party, and decide to play the game ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’, where one is secretly designated the tag of murderer, tapping victims on the shoulder to signify their death, until the rest of the group can decipher who the murderer is. But when the power goes out, the game gets real, as David (Pete Davidson) is found bouncing off the window outside with his neck open. Understandably freaked, the group start pointing fingers at each other, in what will prove a long deadly night.
I want to applaud this movie for presenting the best versions of Gen Z I’ve come across in a while. They’re frank and liberated – obviously, rampant scenes of lesbianism are going to appeal to me also. I watch a lot of movies, and I enjoy, but I bitch and moan about one aspect or another, and it’s a delight to sit back and have no complaints, as the tale unfolds. From the moment we meet this group, their friendship feels authentic, and they’re all a bit suss. As the audience, we’re prepared for shit to go sideways, and the movie is brilliant at giving us enough reason to doubt everyone in this group, underhandedly, while as far as their conversations go, they are all longtime friends looking for a good time. Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) has shown up unexpectedly, and some in the group feel she is taking advantage, after a stint in rehab for drugs. Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) has a seriously sharp vibe, prepared to slap her friends hard in the face at the beginning of the game, and flirts with Sophie’s girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova). Fluttery Alice (Rachel Sennott) has brought an unknown to the party that she met on Tinder – Greg (Lee Pace), a spacy VET much older than the rest of them, and David is open about not liking him. David’s just a dick in general, and to his own girlfriend too, Emma (Chase Sui Wonders). And then there’s Max, who’s on the sidelines, but in the back of our minds, as he punched David the night before and stormed off after confessing his love for Emma. All this is a massive tick to the writing and the loose performances of the cast, setting up the upcoming action. The movie’s screenwriter Sarah DeLappe doesn’t even have herself a Wikipedia entry yet, but a Google search reveals she’s a noted playwright, and I look forward to learning more about her. Similarly, director Halina Rejin has a long CV in Dutch acting, but Bodies Bodies Bodies is her second movie and first movie to be directed in English – they’ve spun gold.
Luckily for these creators, cocaine is a hell of a drug, and any irrational behaviour as things escalate can come down to the copious amount of drug use. I wanted that killer reveal – as Sophie and Bee are hiding in the closet together, I ached for it. But I did think about Scream, the franchise, and how when that release of knowing comes it’s not always satisfactory – it’s the anticipation, the yearning for the reveal, that provides the most ecstasy. So, when this movie does reveal its initial killer and defies expectations, I can’t complain. All that time I spent, putting clues together, working through my suspicions, and I’m no better than the characters in this movie. I guess the joke is on me, duped by the genre, willing to believe something sinister when Occam’s Razor suggests, the simplest answer is usually the right one. As much as a traditional slasher can be exciting, this ending is much more tragic, right? I mean, if one of your friends decides to go on a homicidal rampage, there’s not a lot you can do about it. But if your entire friend group perishes out of scared squabbling and secrets… that’s horrific. Scream elevated the horror genre by posing the question, what if all those gory movies you love are warping your friend’s brain? Bodies Bodies Bodies poses the question, what if all those horror movies you love have ruined your perception of reality? I may be alone here, but this feels like another monumental step forward in the engineering of a slasher story. Bodies Bodies Bodies is must-see! But I’m sure if you picked the pathway this movie travels, then the overall ending mightn’t be as satisfactory to you, but I certainly didn’t.
Pete Davidson may act like the anchor of this movie, as its most recognisable face, and credit to him for playing the first victim, and letting the girls run wild thereafter. We all loved Maria Bakalova in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, and it’s great to see her expand out again – I just realised, as I write this, I said something similar about Bakalova in The Bubble, but this is way better; way better. Rachel Sennott was in Shiva Baby I think, a movie I didn’t see but got rave reviews last year. She’s my favourite performance in this – annoying, but endearing enough to see why this group keep her as a friend.
I heard a Tarantino quote recently say that it’s a director’s job is to take you on an emotional journey, making you feel as the director wants you to feel in any given moment. No doubt, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a rollercoaster that hooked me in from go to woe, jolting and jostling to this movie’s command. If I were to have a minor criticism about Bodies Bodies Bodies it would be that I enjoyed the character of Bee most before we found out about her backstory. I also think it could’ve been mind-blowing to realise later on that all the girls were each responsible for a kill in the end, but I suppose if Alice had really killed somebody, she would’ve blabbed straight away, and I can’t think of a way to make the idea work, so I give up. But I do know that this will be one of my favourite movies of the year. As a big judgy fan of the whodunit genre, I don’t know whether I’m easier to please, or harder to impress, but I would assume the latter. And this is A24, guys – the best production company! Disney and the other established studios may wield the big guns, but look no further than A24 for attracting constant creativity and originality.
5.0
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