Hit the floor floor floor
Many people (including Tim, which is why I'm the one covering this movie), have been turned off by the trailer of Bodies Bodies Bodies because of its artless display of the characters misappropriating Gen Z "woke" language. That's not not part of it, to be fair. But, like pretty much any A24 genre film, the publicity team is trying to sell a completely different project that doesn't exist. One's mileage with the way the film hammers its zeitgeist satire will vary, but it does have more going on beyond "sometimes people say they're triggered." Maybe not a lot more, but it's certainly less unbearably rancid, and delivered at less of a rat-a-tat pace, than you may have been led to believe.
Our entry point to Bodies Bodies Bodies is Bee (Maria Bakalova), a young Eastern European woman who just wants everyone to like her, though she is unwilling to go into much detail about her past. For the past six weeks, she has been dating rich girl and recovering drug addict Sophie (Amandla Stenberg), who is bringing her along to a party at the palatial home of her childhood best friend David (Pete Davidson). As soon as they arrive, it is immediately clear that they weren't expecting Sophie, and not too many of the gathered assemblage - which includes David's actress girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), podcaster Alice (Rachel Sennott), Alice's much older Tinder date Greg (Lee Pace), and Sophie's jealous ex Jordan (Myha'la Herrold) - is happy she's there.
Nevertheless, the party moves inside to continue in earnest as a storm overtakes the isolated villa. During a game of Bodies Bodies Bodies, which is basically Assassin/Mafia plus Sardines, one of their number eventually winds up actually dead, and the remaining members find themselves quickly torn apart by suspicion and infighting as they try to figure out who the killer is.
Now, a large part of the humor does rely on egotists using progressive language around mental health seizing every opportunity available to take a tough situation and center it entirely around themselves. It's basically Not Okay with edged weapons. However it is but one element among several that the players use to pick one another apart. For one thing, Bodies Bodies Bodies is nearly as interested in exploring the minute social strata that separate the rich from the ultra-rich, and how all of them are pretty alienating to anyone who isn't either of those things. All of this humor is legitimately grounded in characters that, cartoonish though they may be, are well-realized by the performers bringing them to life
Rachel Sennott is having the best time playing the flattest cartoon character of them all, but everyone is acquitting themselves perfectly well, with the possible exception of Pete Davidsdon, who only knows how to play himself. However, that's all the film asks of him, and the film is far more interested in its female characters so he isn't given much of a chance to sour the proceedings. The other major standout here is Maria Bakalova, who has thankfully found a much better post-Oscar nomination role for herself than the godawful The Bubble. While I wish her character was given an extra scene or two for the audience to be clued into exactly what is going on with her, she is an excellent audience surrogate, providing a grounding presence without sacrificing Bee's own layered personality.
While the comic elements are more complicated and more successful than might otherwise be expected, the horror elements of Bodies Bodies Bodies suffer mightily in their wake. This is basically an And Then There Were None scenario, but it has none of the tight focus of the Christie work, and it frequently forgets that its characters are in danger, but not in a "these characters are too vapid to realize they're in danger" way. Its oddly amorphous and idle plot really gets in the way of building any sort of consistent feeling of tension, so it's a very good thing the film itself recognizes that its strength lies in comedy, which can take root and thrive much easier in this kind of environment.
There is also no denying that the film has almost no aesthetic appeal at all. One personal note is that I am photosensitive, and it is difficult for me to watch extremely high-contrast shots of, say, a flashlight cutting through the dark*, so a great deal of this film just plain didn't work for me. However, even if you have 20-20 vision and eyes of steel, you're still just looking at a lot of shots of a flashlight in the dark. Although, honestly, this unabashed ugliness is probably where Bodies Bodies Bodies most effectively emulates the formula of the '80s slasher, which is no stranger to this kind of aesthetic.
Without spoiling anything [though if you want to be extra careful, skip to the next paragraph], Bodies Bodies Bodies sums up the entire experience of the film with the one-two punch of a reveal that so effectively and humorously ties the whole thing up that I added an extra half star to my rating, followed immediately by the single worst, least motivated line in the entire film.
It's a hard film to out-and-out love, even if it's not exactly unsatisfactory. I have a tough time imagining that anyone could entirely hate Bodies Bodies Bodies, especially considering how committed its cast is, but it's equally difficult to imagine this is going to become anyone's new favorite. It's more or less exactly a middle-of-the-road August thriller, here to whet the palate for more horror/thriller projects as the leaves start to change and spooky season revs up in earnest.
*Don't even get me started on how many horror films think it's super cool to lay a strobe light effect over their entire third act.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
Our entry point to Bodies Bodies Bodies is Bee (Maria Bakalova), a young Eastern European woman who just wants everyone to like her, though she is unwilling to go into much detail about her past. For the past six weeks, she has been dating rich girl and recovering drug addict Sophie (Amandla Stenberg), who is bringing her along to a party at the palatial home of her childhood best friend David (Pete Davidson). As soon as they arrive, it is immediately clear that they weren't expecting Sophie, and not too many of the gathered assemblage - which includes David's actress girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), podcaster Alice (Rachel Sennott), Alice's much older Tinder date Greg (Lee Pace), and Sophie's jealous ex Jordan (Myha'la Herrold) - is happy she's there.
Nevertheless, the party moves inside to continue in earnest as a storm overtakes the isolated villa. During a game of Bodies Bodies Bodies, which is basically Assassin/Mafia plus Sardines, one of their number eventually winds up actually dead, and the remaining members find themselves quickly torn apart by suspicion and infighting as they try to figure out who the killer is.
Now, a large part of the humor does rely on egotists using progressive language around mental health seizing every opportunity available to take a tough situation and center it entirely around themselves. It's basically Not Okay with edged weapons. However it is but one element among several that the players use to pick one another apart. For one thing, Bodies Bodies Bodies is nearly as interested in exploring the minute social strata that separate the rich from the ultra-rich, and how all of them are pretty alienating to anyone who isn't either of those things. All of this humor is legitimately grounded in characters that, cartoonish though they may be, are well-realized by the performers bringing them to life
Rachel Sennott is having the best time playing the flattest cartoon character of them all, but everyone is acquitting themselves perfectly well, with the possible exception of Pete Davidsdon, who only knows how to play himself. However, that's all the film asks of him, and the film is far more interested in its female characters so he isn't given much of a chance to sour the proceedings. The other major standout here is Maria Bakalova, who has thankfully found a much better post-Oscar nomination role for herself than the godawful The Bubble. While I wish her character was given an extra scene or two for the audience to be clued into exactly what is going on with her, she is an excellent audience surrogate, providing a grounding presence without sacrificing Bee's own layered personality.
While the comic elements are more complicated and more successful than might otherwise be expected, the horror elements of Bodies Bodies Bodies suffer mightily in their wake. This is basically an And Then There Were None scenario, but it has none of the tight focus of the Christie work, and it frequently forgets that its characters are in danger, but not in a "these characters are too vapid to realize they're in danger" way. Its oddly amorphous and idle plot really gets in the way of building any sort of consistent feeling of tension, so it's a very good thing the film itself recognizes that its strength lies in comedy, which can take root and thrive much easier in this kind of environment.
There is also no denying that the film has almost no aesthetic appeal at all. One personal note is that I am photosensitive, and it is difficult for me to watch extremely high-contrast shots of, say, a flashlight cutting through the dark*, so a great deal of this film just plain didn't work for me. However, even if you have 20-20 vision and eyes of steel, you're still just looking at a lot of shots of a flashlight in the dark. Although, honestly, this unabashed ugliness is probably where Bodies Bodies Bodies most effectively emulates the formula of the '80s slasher, which is no stranger to this kind of aesthetic.
Without spoiling anything [though if you want to be extra careful, skip to the next paragraph], Bodies Bodies Bodies sums up the entire experience of the film with the one-two punch of a reveal that so effectively and humorously ties the whole thing up that I added an extra half star to my rating, followed immediately by the single worst, least motivated line in the entire film.
It's a hard film to out-and-out love, even if it's not exactly unsatisfactory. I have a tough time imagining that anyone could entirely hate Bodies Bodies Bodies, especially considering how committed its cast is, but it's equally difficult to imagine this is going to become anyone's new favorite. It's more or less exactly a middle-of-the-road August thriller, here to whet the palate for more horror/thriller projects as the leaves start to change and spooky season revs up in earnest.
*Don't even get me started on how many horror films think it's super cool to lay a strobe light effect over their entire third act.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
