Tag Archives: 2009

2018 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 17: Jennifer’s Body (2009)

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Day 17 of the Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge is 17. Die Laughing. “Hello?” “I don’t think comedy belongs in horror.” “You got the wrong number, pal.” I’ve picked a movie that got a bad rap when it came out but time seems to have been kinder to, Jennifer’s Body. I missed it on the first go-round, so let’s get into it.

Jennifer’s Body was written by Diablo Cody,  who became known for the blog and book Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, as well as the screenplay for Juno. Since then, she’s done script revisions on the new Evil Dead as well as writing Ricki and the Flash and Tully.

Named for the Hole song, this is a film about not just demonic possession, but dealing with high school and the changes that childhood friendships go through. Anita “Needy” Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) have been friends since childhood, but times are changing.

Yet at the very start of the film, Anita is locked in a mental institution and unafraid to attack anyone in her way. She flashes back to her high school days with Jennifer, who was her the exact diametrical opposite. Where Anita is quiet, rude and withdrawn, Jennifer is loud, snide, sexy and popular.

Everything changes on the night that they attend a concert at the local dive bar, Melody Lane, to see Low Shoulder. While the band plays, a fire explodes across the bar and kills everyone inside, except the band, Jennifer and Anita. The band leaves with Jennifer over Anita’s protests. Later that night, she shows up bloody and shaking, devouring the inside of Anita’s mom refrigerator and spewing black fluid all over the linoleum.

Yet the next day, Jennifer is just fine. But things aren’t fine any longer. The town is devastated by the fire and the captain of the football team has been devoured in the woods. The only people who are doing well are Low Shoulder, whose heroism in the fire has been noted. Now, they want to make a charity performance at the school.

A month later, Jennifer is growing paler and needier, accepting a date with the school’s most emo kid, Colin, to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. While Needy is losing her virginity to Chip, Jennifer is murdering her date.

Needy finds Jennifer drenched in blood and that’s when the secret comes out: Low Shoulder had tried to sacrifice her for fame and fortune, but since Jennifer wasn’t a virgin, she remains permanently possessed. Her first victim was the foreign exchange student that night after the fire. When she has eaten someone, she can survive any injury, feel no pain and becomes even more beautiful.

Needy does her research and learns that Jennifer is a succubus who can only be killed when she is hungry. She warns Chip not to attend the school dance, where she feels that Jennifer will feed on everyone. She even breaks up with him, but he comes anyone to his doom. The two girls battle in Jennifer’s bedroom before Needy is able to stab her best friend in the heart with a box cutter, ending her reign of terror.

Unfortunately, Jennifer’s mother only sees her daughter being killed, which is why Needy is in the asylum. As we come back to the beginning, Needy learns that a non-fatal bite from Jennifer has given her powers. She soon escapes, hitchhikes to Low Shoulder’s motel (of all people, Lance Henriken gives her a ride) and gets revenge for her and Jennifer.

Personally? I liked it. There’s a great moment during Needy’s first sexual encounter with her boyfriend where she notices all of Jennifer’s victims watching, much like the theater of corpses from An American Werewolf in London. I liked the relationship between the girls and am glad they didn’t follow through on the original plans to have a sex scene between them, as I felt that would have jumped too far into pure titillation.

It’d be interesting to see how this film would fare if made today. In a February 2016 New York Times interview, director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, The Invitation) said that the studio’s all-male marketing department had no idea what to do with the movie, even suggesting that Megan Fox do live sex chats on amateur porn sites to drum up interest in the film. Obviously, the #metoo moment came at the right time.

The only downer to this film for me is how close it is to Ginger Snaps. It hits so many of the same story beats that one wonders exactly how many times Diable Cody watched it. That said, the music is decent and this movie will keep you entertained for 90 minutes.

DEADLY GAME SHOWS: Gamer (2009)

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From the first scene in this film, a journey across the world with propaganda messages across familiar landmarks and a gun battle that feels like a First Person Shooter, Gamer feels way more dated than a movie that came out nine years ago.

Gamer is a world of what the late 90’s and early 2000’s saw as our future: blips, ultraviolence, video games, nu-metal and reality TV. I hate to say that for the most part, it’s gotten a lot of it correct.

In 2034, Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall, Dexter) invents self-replicating technology that replaces brain tissue, allowing people to control one another and see through their eyes. Called Nanex, Castle uses this technology to create Society, a virtual life game ala Second Life (remember that?). His next idea is Slayers, a game that allows people to control prisoners on death row as they battle in a gladiator arena. Any Slayer that survives the game thirty times gets their freedom. But that’s never happened.

John “Kable” Tillman (Gerard Butler, 300) is the most popular Slayer there is. He’s made the record for survival — 27 matches — all controlled by Simon (Logan Lerman, The Perks of Being a Wallflower), a rich kid and superstar gamer.

Meanwhile, Humanz (they are from the streets, as the z will tell you), an anti-Slayers organization, hacks the Gina Parker Smith (Kyra Sedgwick, Singles, Hearts and Souls) Show when Castle makes an appearance. Their voice comes from Brother, played by Ludacris. Remember when I told you this movie was firmly of its time?

Castle is more concerned with the fact that Kable might win Slayers, so he brings in a new player, Hackman (Terry Crews, The Expendables), a psychotic inmate who is not controlled by a player and who suffers no lag time.

There’s also a guy named Freek (John Leguizamo, Spawn) who befriends Kable. And oh yeah, Kable’s wife Nika (Amber Valetta, What Lies Beneath) is a Society avatar who is rich from being part of the game but can’t get their daughter, Delia, back.

Holy shit, the Society game. It’s every late 1990’s teenage daydream on crack and filtered through pure scum and not in a good, fun Eurohorror way, either. There are characters like Vaginablender and mostly players either have sex or rollerblade or rollerblade while having sex.

There’s a horrible scene here where Simon talks to his female fans, including Stikkimuffin, his sister SISSYPUSS, a girl with a tongue that’s been pierced 25 times or so and two British twins named Kumdumpstaz. It looks like it was filmed inside a bottle of Mountain Dew and then someone jacked off all over it.

Meanwhile, the Humanz contact Kable and Simon, warning them that there’s no escape. Instead, they modify Kable to control himself again. Simon is labeled a cheater, has all of his assets frozen and the FBI investigates him (Keith David shows up!).

Kable heads to the Humanz’ HQ, but he refuses to be part of the fight. Instead, he finds and rescues his wife before meeting up with the talk show host — who is really helping the Humanz. Once his nanites are deactivated, Kable remembers that he was tested on while in the military and Castle mentally controlled him, forcing him to kill his best friend.

Of course, the main bad guy in the movie was the person who stole Kastle’s daughter.

Of course, he goes to get her back.

Of course, Castle has already killed all of the Humanz.

Castle reveals that he has a brain that is 90% nanites and thanks to an airborne virus, he’ll soon control the whole country. Hackman then attacks, but Kable kills him quickly. But Castle stops our hero, as his nanites have been reactivated.

But wait! Gina and Trace (Alison Lohman, Drag Me to Hell) have survived and hack their way in. They reveal the secrets of Castle to the world and allow Simon to have control of Kable all over again.

Just in time — Castle was trying to get Kable to kill his own daughter, but Simon and Castle are now battling for control. Finally, Tillman tells Castle to imagine being stabbed, which allows him to break his control and kill the final boss. Then, he deactivates both Slayers and Society.

Finally, the Tillman family walks down a country road when the words “Game Over” appear. I’d ask if this was all a dream, but I’m not certain this movie is ready to make a narrative jump like that.

Gamer comes from the team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who were also responsible for Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and The Vatican Tapes. Whereas the Crank films feel like gleeful bursts of anarchy, this is a movie made by a mainstream studio that seeks to bite the hand that feeds. And unlike a film like They Live that escapes from the big budget process, this film takes so much glee in showing us the Slayers and Society worlds that you tend to wonder which side of the coin they are falling upon.

Also — Michael C. Hall appears to be in a completely different movie than everyone else. It’s like he wanted to sing and dance through an entire scene, so they said, “Hey, why not?”

Oh man — I also forgot that there’s a scene where Kable fills up a car by drinking gasoline, then puking and pissing into a gas tank. If this makes you want to watch this film, have at it!

WATCH THE SERIES: Friday the 13th part 4

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With Freddy vs. Jason stuck in development hell (what, no one just wanted to make money?), New Line didn’t want people to forget Jason. So they sent him into the future. They sent him into virtual reality. And they sent him into space.

Jason X  (2001)

In 2010 — 9 years in the future! — Jason is captured by the U.S. government but can’t be killed, so government scientist Rowan LaFontaine decides to place the killer is suspended animation. Of course, a bunch of soldiers screws the whole thing up and Jason kills everyone in his path before he stabs Rowan and freezing both of them.

445 years later, Earth is ruined so everyone moves to Earth 2. So why not send some students back to the old Earth on a field trip? Why not send their professor and an android, too? While exploring the Crystal Lake facility where Jason was experimented on? And why not put the still frozen bodies of Jason and Rowan on the Grendel, their ship? Nothing bad can happen, right?

Well, it turns out that Jason is dead and his body could be worth plenty. The Professor calls his money man, Dieter Perez (Robert A. Silverman, who has been in five Cronenberg* movies and the two episodes of Friday the 13th: The Series that he directed, too) and they discuss how Jason’s body could be worth something to collectors. Luckily — or maybe not — they bring Rowan back to life.

Of course, kids keep having sex around Jason, which brings the maniac back to life. He wipes out nearly everyone on the ship, including all of the soldiers that are on board. He even takes out an entire space station!

The teens upgrade their android, KM-14, who wipes out Jason. Or so everyone thinks — a medical station brings him back as Uber Jason, filled with cybernetics so powerful that he can punch the android’s head off. Not even a holographic simulation or a shuttle crash can slow him down! It takes flying him through re-entry and burning him up to take him out.

That said — two teens see his mask land on Earth 2, so he could always come back. He can come back, right?

This was written by Todd Farmer (Drive Angry, the remake of My Bloody Valentine) and directed by James Isaac (House 3). I have a real weakness for this film as it really goes places none of the others did. It’s the Abbott and Costello school of running out of ideas and just doing something completely off the wall.

*Cronenberg shows up in a cameo as Dr. Wimmer, too!

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Finally, after years of development stops and starts, arguably the two biggest horror icons of the 1980s would fight. Helmed by The Bride with White Hair director Ronny Yu, this would be the last film in both villain’s series before they were rebooted.

Freddy is stuck in Hell, powerless because the children of Springwood have forgotten about him. He disguises himself as Pamela Vorhees and sends a message to Jason, begging him to kill the teens he can no longer reach.

The adults cover it up, just as they have for years. They don’t want Freddy ever coming back, so they even send his victims to a sanitarium and give them Hypnocil to suppress their dreams. Freddy starts coming back with each kill, but then he realizes that Jason cannot be contained and that his mayhem will only cost him victims. 

Our protagonists try to pull Freddy from the dream world into our world, but Freddy catches Jason in his dream world, using his fear over drowning to defeat him. At the last moment, Jason actually saves everyone by returning to our world.

By the end, Freddy is decapitated and Jason is dead. Or is he? Of course, he raises from the lake, holding his machete and Freddy’s head as the bastard son of a thousand maniacs winks to the audience.

Sadly, Kane Hodder was replaced by the even larger Ken Kirzinger. The director wanted a bigger, bulkier Jason. Oh well. Also, Kelly Rowland from Destiny’s Child is in this.

While sequels were planned (rumored battles were to include Ash from Evil Dead, Pinhead from Hellraiser and Michael Myers from Halloween), nothing ever happened. There was a comic series that did this — more on that later.

The movie figures out a nice way to connect the characters, but they went even further in the original script. One idea was that Freddy either raped or had a consensual sexual encounter with Jason’s mother, and as a result, was Jason’s dad. Or maybe Freddy had worked at Camp Crystal Lake and was the reason behind Jason’s death. These ideas felt too contrived and were dropped.

There was nowhere else to go after this movie. It was time for a reboot.

Friday the 13th (2009)

Marcus Nispel directed the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, so why shouldn’t he get a shot at Jason? This film is more than just a remake of the first film. It’s really a bit of the first four all in one.

We watch Jason as he watches his mother get killed by a camp counselor. Thirty years later, he kills every single teen who has comes to Crystal Lake looking for marijuana, except for Whitney, who reminds him of his mother.

Weeks later, some rich kids come to stay at a fancy cabin. They’re all fodder, too. Only Clay, Whitney’s brother, can save her. Finally, Whitney acts like Jason’s mother and stabs him, but he comes back at the end, rising from the lake.

This is a slick, CGI animated take on the Jason mythos. I’m more into the Savini school of gore, so there’s a lot of this that didn’t work for me. It’s not a horrible film by any means. But it’s not the best of the series. And while it did well at the box office, it was also the end of the series.

Or is it?