Seriously?

Did you see Juno? Were you as horrified as I was? I mean, okay, I have to give it to Juno that it was entertaining. Cute, kitschy, the lines were clever. But the clever lines could only be viewed as an art, sort of what-can-be-done-with-words. It was so over the top and unrealistic. No one talks like that. And in creating that dialogue, Juno just tried way too hard to be hipster, scenester, ironic.  Most people with any interest in film shunned the movie considering it a weak thread stringing annoyingly snappy one liners together. And yet somehow Diablo Cody, a young former stripper turned screenwriter, won an Oscar for her script. Well…who knows.

If Cody was to keep penning scripts, one would at least consider her a safe bet in the world of quirky, purposefully offbeat hipster takes on rom-coms. But no. Cody has defied us by writing a horror comedy, September 18, 2009’s Jennifer’s Body. The film stars Megan Fox as a cheerleader possessed by a demon, who then starts killing off her male classmates, while her best friend, Amanda Seyfried, tries to stop her. Oh my goodness. I like horror comedies. Because let’s face it, most horror movies are ridiculous just as a genre standard. So they deserve to be mocked, but the mockery films are always better when done a bit more subtly, with some actual elements of a horror movie to add some legitimacy. For example, Scary Movie? Bad. Shaun of the Dead? Good. Jennifer’s Body? Film is dying as a whole.

So picture this. A satire-esque gore-fest told through Juno dialogue rejects. I don’t want to give too much away (though I should because you’re not seeing this, right?), in one murder scene the victim looks at his/her killer’s weapon, a boxcutter, and quips “Do you buy all your murder weapons at Home Depot?” In another scene, we see a character in a mental institition, telling us “I was coming undone like those jeans I made in Home Ec. Falling to pieces like Patsy Cline. Shredded like moo shu pork. Dead inside.” What? One description will suffice, thank you.

While this is only a prediction, this movie just misses the mark. It’s hard to succeed at the horror comedy without being flat out stupid. And it won’t look good for Cody to have an absolute bomb on her hands after only one “hit,” which will now appear to be a fluke. If anything this will be big with the teens, maybe especially with guys hoping to get some sights of skin from Megan Fox.

July 10th, 2009 by Courtney Iseman | Posted in Movie News, Uncategorized | (0)