Screenplay by: Sarah Delappe / Story by: Kristen Roupenian / Directed by: Halina Reijn / Released in the UK by: Sony Pictures / 94 Minutes / Rated: 15 / Stars: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, Pete Davidson. / Released 2nd September 2022
Review by: Rob Deb. Read more of Rob's Reviews here. Watch the trailer here.
The Pitch: When a group of 20-somethings gets stuck at a remote mansion during a hurricane, a party game gone very, very wrong ends with a dead body on the ground and fake friends at every turn as they try to find the killer among them.
Back in 1989 Shaun Hutson, who wrote such great books as Slugs, Spawn, Slugs 2: They Live and was the UK splatterpunk king once wrote a treatise on ‘Creating The Perfect Shreddies’. A shreddy is a character you have in your novel, one who'll be dead soon, at the hands of the bad guy just to show how evil he is. The thing is you have to give them enough personality to invoke loss in the viewer while not too much they dominate the rest of the film, just in case audiences detach. It's a tightrope often walked in horror as we feel more sympathetic as the monster tends to kill off the most obnoxious first. Sadly this film’s entourage is so detached socially and digitally through sheer material affluence, that it's hard to cement a bond to any of them to even enjoy the MDK of it all.
the young and rich who all seem more absorbed with their social comments than status
The film starts well with two characters. Do you like girls? No? Then leave. Do you like lesbians? No? Then keep going. Do you like lesbian interracial relationships? Then get out, run, and don't come back. This promises a progressive dynamic in what is still, largely a ‘fragile and final girl’ genre. We enter the dome of the young and rich who all seem more absorbed with their social comments than status. They take things too far and the emotions they digitise begin to run riot. The promise of progress is proved false really quickly as, despite a certain makeover, our archetypes are still in play: Parents house braggart, nympho, comic bangles pixie girl and her creepy older boyfriend ‘Greg’ who as a man in his mid 40’s, I took an instant dislike to. Seriously Greg, get some self-respect and don't be a novelty! This is not a reference to being an old man in a bar. I'm 46.
Neurotic tropes mean nothing against the natural chaos of the real world
After the first death, the lack of wifi, the isolation and the past histories some characters do or do not have with each other come to the fore. As the bodies start to pile up, the reality that they have chat but never have an actual conversation does elevate the film into the realm of horror as an essay. But it's slow talk. Stylistically there is great control of the moments. The suspense, sound lighting and camera movement really make you feel like you're another person there, possibly distancing yourself from death with your own iPhone as the tension mounts. Did I mention the party our characters are at is a hurricane party? Neurotic tropes mean nothing against the natural chaos of the real world and the elements that surround them. On the plus side, there is humour as the Millennial angst combines with a body count creating a commentary that has a certain sharpness and ripostes that are so facile yet so cutting it could be taken out of Dangerous Liaisons.
Maybe we had boomeranged to a point where people, the characters, had to be thick again
There are effective zingers and the naturalistic acting allows great dramatic breathing space. But with the characters as vacuous as they are, it's hard not to see each one die with little concern, much like their friends. There are laughs, but there are far too many moments that have a certain longueur. I will say there were a lot of laughs from the audience. On either side of me at the screening were two women. One in her 30s did not like horror but was invested in the film. The lady to my right, from her apparent age, was the key market. A young woman in her 20’s who muttered the usual comments one does in a horror flick: “He's a twat” and “What are they doing?”. Seriously, there were some moments I wondered about their decision-making process. Maybe we had boomeranged to a point where people, the characters, had to be thick again. But by the time the big reveals and secrets started piling up, those women were laughing. Technically, it's a compelling film and the discourse was interesting, albeit veering into parody more than comedy. Frankly, if they had been more working-class I think half of them would have gone “shove all this noise” the minute Greg finds a massive sword and opens champagne with it. I would say it’s on a par with more recent hits like Ready Or Not, with a splash of Heathers. And also an isolated house slasher with a contemporising of ‘The Last Supper’ and the society clash of ‘tucker and dale vs evil’ But perhaps it's one for the 'anti-Gregs' in the audience. I hated Gregg. I'm 46. Fuck you, Greg. Grow a pair of balls.
Bodies, Bodies, Bodies is on release from 2nd September.