I watched "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies"
Yup, a movie review from a Film Minor
Backstory
I minored in Film Studies in college because I was told “go with something you’re interested in” and movies were my favorite thing through high school and college. My friend group held regular movie fests where we gathered at someone’s house and watched 3-4 movies in one day. My free evenings were spent watching borrowed and rented DVDs with commentary and behind the scenes bonus content. I was a regular cinephile.
Sadly over the years I’ve fallen off my movie watching habit, the steady intake of new films burned me out and I just watched what I knew I enjoyd over and over again. Recently I’ve rekindled my love of film and started watching new movies I normally wouldn’t check out. And that’s why you’re reading about Bodies, Bodies, Bodies today.
Review
Expecting a painfully cringe experience like “Save Yourselves” that took down millennial culture I was surprised by how fun Bodies Bodies Bodies is. And I’ll mark it when I get there, but I am spoiling the big twist reveal because it is partly why I enjoyed the movie as much as I did.
A group of rich 20 year olds meet at one of their parents’ house to do drugs, drink, and play party games to celebrate the Sophie and her new girl friend Bee show up a day late, after some drama had gone down. Over the evening we see David, Emma, Alice, Jordan, and Greg party for the hurricane with Sophie and Bee until the power goes out. Now wandering around a dark house, the group discovers one of them has been killed. Now they’re playing a real game of Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, trying to find out who the killer is as they’re picked off one by one. The twists are well done and you’re left guessing who the killer is until the end.
It’s a campy look at Gen Z handling an emergency with no outside support (phones have no reception or wifi) and a terrific character study of the characters. Not fully traditional horror tropes, the characters do fall into recognizable categories like Party Girl (Alice) Stern Leader (Jordan) and unknown new person (Bee and Greg). The director Halina Reijn even utilizes the source of lights to indicate their personalities. You get a clear picture of who everyone is, which helps with the intrigue of what’s happening.
SPOILERS BEGIN
The movie really works because of the twist ending. Everyone spends the movie trying to discover who killed David with the kukri, revealing who the characters really are as they fall apart. This continues we see until Bee and Sophie discover David’s phone and the hilarious truth. The truth being he accidentally sliced his own throat trying to open a champagne bottle while filming it for TikTok. It’s genuinely funny and a great reveal after a movie full of misdirects and red herrings.
SPOILERS OVER
Overall it’s a fun horror movie that plays with the tropes and doesn’t take itself too seriously, which good horror is supposed to do, right? I don’t watch many scary movies due to being easily scared but this is one I had a blast watching. If you don’t want to see Gen Z distilled into almost satire or scenes with blood and horror then you’ll want to skip it.