The Facts:
Synopsis: A party game leads to murder when young and wealthy friends gather at a remote family mansion during a hurricane.
Stars: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, Pete Davidson
Director: Halina Reijn
Rated: R
Running Length: 95 minutes
TMMM Score: (8.5/10)
Review: While I’m trying to enjoy these last weeks of Summer proper and the cool-ish weather they are bringing us up here in MN, I can’t help but look ahead to the fall. It’s my favorite season, and it also means the arrival of 31 Days to Scare, my yearly dive into familiar and unknown titles, designed to give you some alternate options as Halloween draws near. I thought about some of the movies I’d looked at in the past because A24’s new hip horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies would have fit in nicely into that mix. Strip all its modern cultural analysis, timely references, and forgive me, jokey wokeness, and you have the makings of a slumber party-ready scare flick you could have rented on VHS back in the day.
Making her English-language debut, celebrated Dutch director & actress Halina Reijn brings bold confidence to Bodies Bodies Bodies from the start, opening the film with an intimate moment between Sophie (Amandla Stenberg, Dear Evan Hansen) and Bee (Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm). It’s a bracing image but important in setting a mood for the journey we’re about to take. Recently out of rehab, Sophie is taking her new girlfriend to a weekend party at the secluded home of her childhood friend, David (Pete Davidson, The Suicide Squad). With a hurricane planned to pass over the mansion, the guests are stocked up and prepared for a crazy party, but none of them will expect what happens when the lights go out later that evening.
The fun in Bodies Bodies Bodies is not merely in playing “Guess the Murderer” as it is in many of these stalk and slash films that populated many a drive-in, video store, and, more recently, streaming service. While the eventual mayhem that ensues is enticing and keeps you guessing until the end (good luck trying to put it together), the entertainment Reijn and screenwriter Sarah DeLappe provide is through careful understanding of the temperament of its audience. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a genre title pivot so well with an audience, almost like it was reading the room for the specific screening I was attending.
This near-second-sight talent allows the film to often be wildly funny through its performances and its brutal shakedown of the elite types the actors are playing. While Stenberg and Bakalova continue to demonstrate significant signs their stars are about to go supernova, Reijn surrounds them with others that may join their ranks. Standouts include Myha’la Herrold (Premature) as Jordan, one of the few friends in attendance not outright happy to see Sophie that suspects trouble from the new girl she’s brought along with her. Herrold’s playing the ‘mean girl’ trope at the outset but peels back new layers each time the film takes a twisted turn. Expect much talk about Rachel Sennott’s (Shiva Baby) Alice, a new breed of WASP who gives some of DeLappe’s best lines the most extraordinary readings.
As much as he bothered me on Saturday Night Live, when Davidson is contained in an acting role, he manages to be consistently impressive, and that’s true here as well. A brief fight with his girlfriend (Chase Sui Wonders, On the Rocks) is an intense scene for both. Like many, I’ve loved Lee Pace (Captain Marvel) for some time and wish he’d land that role to kick him up a notch in Hollywood. He’s well-used here in a small but pivotal part but always feels off a, ahem, pace from the others. Though obviously made on a budget, the film has a nice look to it, with production designer April Lasky (The Greatest Showman) providing a house that’s easy to get turned around in, Jasper Wolf (carried over from Reijn’s first film, Instinct) working wonders helping us see in a house supposedly without electricity and composer Disasterpeace (It Follows) adding to the tension with a score that only intrudes when Reijn shifts things into a higher gear.
Running an absolute perfect length, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a tightly packed film that wisely doesn’t aim to cover a ton of ground outside of its claustrophobic setting. With the hurricane in full swing outside, the guests are trapped in the house with a dwindling number of people they can trust. As friendships are tested and secrets revealed, it becomes harder to believe even your closest bestie, and no one is safe before long. I kept waiting for the film to cheat us or pull the rug to yank us in a direction we didn’t need to go, but blessedly the filmmakers stayed the course and stuck the ending beautifully. Grab a friend, hunker down, and get ready to play.