'Bodies Bodies Bodies' Review: Let the Girlies Hit the Floor
R: Violence, bloody images, drug use, sexual references, and pervasive language
Runtime: 1 Hr and 35 Minutes
Production Companies: 2AM, A24
Distributor: A24
Director: Halina Reijn
Writers: Sarah DeLappe
Cast: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Pete Davidson, Rachel Sennott, Myha'la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Lee Pace
Release Date: August 5, 2022
In Theaters Only
When a group of rich 20-somethings plans a hurricane party at a remote family mansion, a party game goes awry in this fresh and funny look at backstabbing, fake friends, and a party gone very, very wrong.
If there’s anything cinema has taught anyone, it’s that nobody should ever play a game with rich people. Whether it be a murder mystery party (Game Night, Clue) or a simple game of Hide & Seek (Ready or Not), playing a game with rich people will cost you your life. Not even your original games that are specific to you and your friends are safe. That’s the case in Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, a fun single-set horror slasher featuring a bunch of rich Gen-Z BFFs and their partners who play a childhood game that takes the deadliest of turns.
If the Plastics from Mean Girls were twenty-something Gen-Z’ers, they would be this friend group. All the girls are the ideal archetypes of upper-class rich kid snobs, from nonchalantly popping pills and doing coke to being obnoxiously selfish and self-absorbed. They operate on the same level as Rachel Sennott’s “It’s LA” Twitter video, which feels meta since Sennott stars in this film. While most of them are insufferable people in their own right, they’re surely entertaining and hilarious.
The narrative is predominantly told through the perspective of Bee (Maria Bakalova) and her girlfriend Sophie (Amandla Stenberg). The two head to Sophie’s friend David’s (Pete Davidson) family mansion where a group of childhood friends of hers, all of who come from wealth, party prior to a hurricane hitting their area. Bee, being of a lower class and not of American blood, has trouble integrating herself with her girlfriend’s friends when meeting them for the first time. And who can blame her? They’re a lot to handle. You have self-absorbed one-liner machine Alice (Rachel Sennott), her eccentric older boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace), David’s needy wannabe actress girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), and Sophie’s ex Jordan (Myha'la Herrold). The vibe between everyone is tense due to various factors in their relationships and dynamics prior to the catalyst of the murder coming to fruition when their original game of “Bodies Bodies Bodies” goes wrong.
Whoever was the casting agent on Bodies deserves all the flowers in the world. They nabbed the hottest Gen-Z enby actors and actresses whose careers are blowing up sky high right now and planted them in an A24 movie that attracts the young film Twitter crowd. To no one’s surprise, they all kill it. Once the storm approaches and the first body hit the floor, the weight of this friend group’s dynamic is tested. Sometimes the gut-busting laughs turn into nervous chuckles and it's all perfectly balanced with a great cast who has fantastic chemistry with each other and also shine individually.
One of the standouts is Maria Bakalova, who reigns supreme while expressing her range as a performer. Surprisingly, she’s the straight man in this ensemble of quirky, snobby, high-class personalities, and she still stuns in a rather dramatic role. She may not be cracking jokes, but her introversion keeps you on your toes. It goes to show we’ve only cracked the surface of the power Bakalova truly holds as a performer. Amandla Stenberg finally gets to be gay in a project and they’re fantastic, especially with the heavy subject their character deals with. This was my introduction to Myha'la Herrold––sorry, I haven’t watched Industry yet––and her cold take-no-shit personality is truly intimidating. Chase Sui Wonders nails the uppity actress personality where she needs to be the center of attention, even with the offscreen love triangle her character is in. And, of course, Rachel Sennott steals the show whenever she’s on-screen, for she is THE chaotic comedic relief who cranks the bar to eleven. Not even the likes of an SNL cast member like Pete Davidson can touch the same ground she’s on, for she runs circles around the dude in the funny department.
Director Halina Reijn gets great mileage out of the single-set location. The massive mansion where all these murders go down makes great use of some decent kills or body reveals. Hardly is there a moment where the location or the pacing runs their course. The use of darkness along with some neon light from the glowsticks Alice wears in some of the rooms gives the visual aesthetic its own personality that matches the film’s tone and vibe. Also, there are clever uses of one-ers and handheld that puts you on the same wavelength of anxiety as the women or puts you right into the intensity of some deadly action.
There’s a weird clash between the grounded atmosphere of the film where the kills are serious rather than over-the-top to match these rich girls and their personalities. You’re in a mansion full of weird weapons such as swords and rooms where background materials could be used as a murder weapon. When the body count gets higher, the deaths remain the same, with the most fatal weapon of choice being a gun (unfortunately). It’s not necessarily a negative aspect, but when you got a location as lavish as a remote mansion and set during a hurricane, the opportunities are endless.
Bodies presents a sense of camp but doesn’t go full goofy, for it manages to find a balance. But the screenplay by Sarah DeLappe does face some hurdles. When the story gets into deep character moments, providing insight into what the friendship between Sophie and everyone else used to be, it’s strong and feels natural. It adds aggression to the atmosphere, but alas, at other times, it’s undercut by current/trendy jokes that try too hard to appease the audience for laughs. Thankfully, it isn’t constant and the ensemble makes some of the mediocre jokes genuinely hysterical.
Fitting along the same line as Scream 5, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a friggin’ riot of a slasher comedy for Gen-Z audiences. It's a hilarious, bloody, and delightfully entertaining whodunnit that balances its thrills and laughs out of a claustrophobic single-set location. Bolstered by a stellar cast of performers who all ate their roles, with some showcasing a new brush of range, Bodies Bodies Bodies is the deadliest yet most fun falling-out between a group of friends ever.
