Bodies Bodies Bodies is a 2022 American horror film about a group of young women who throw a party at a remote mansion.
In "Bodies Bodies Bodies," a group of rich kids, five old friends, along with a couple of not-so-important people, get together for a hurricane party at one of their parents' suburban pastoral mansion. What is a hurricane party? A storm has been forecast, and they're using it as an excuse to barricade themselves inside, so they can dance to TikTok videos, do cocaine, and play games, including one that describes their more-or-less constant state of being: reading each other, outdoing each other. others, challenging each other like claw-baring rivals on a reality show. This, according to the film's satirical take, is what friendship has come to in the age of gossip on social media.
Stars: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Rachel Sennott
The director, Halina Reijn, works in what could be called the direct school of 20-something melodrama. As soon as Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and her new girlfriend (Maria Bakalova, from "Borat Next Movie") show up and find the others lounging by the pool, the spirited hostility begins. The characters are against each other and the film is against us; much of it is shot close-up, in the dark (at one point a power generator shuts down), with the storm raging outside, so the audience feels like they're part of the pressure cooker.
However, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” also has a quick and witty aggressive tone. David, whose parents own the house, is played by Pete Davidson with a black eye that makes him look like a panda, and as soon as you have Pete Davidson in your movie, doing what he does (being a stunted bad boy, then spits out an observation so sharp that it undermines his shocking obtuseness), he's signaling the audience to treat everything that's going on as a joke.
Not too late at night, the characters decide to play the game where you "kill" someone by touching them, and everyone has to figure out who the killer is. (On the few occasions I was forced to play this game, I never fully understood how the rules work.) When they're all in the living room, trying to name this or that person as the killer, the tension runs high. They are taking this very seriously! (Their lives are just a show, mere fodder for competitive conversation. But a game is something not played with.) They all seem to know each other's secrets, and after one character's romantic relationship is revealed to be plagued by a sexual problem, the character storms off. Moments later, his throat has been slit wide open. The knowingly histrionic zoomer soap opera has been turned into a slasher film.
Who does not? We have no idea, but the implication is that he is one of the people available. For years, the entire paradigm of teen horror movies (first they kill this kid, then that kid, then this kid) has been traced back to the murder mystery form invented by Agatha Christie in "And Then There Were None." ". "Bodies Bodies Bodies," with its restless camera movement and impromptu-style acting and overall dramatic buzz, is like "And Then There Were None" staged by John Cassavetes for the age of Instagram.
So it's, you know, fun? In "Bodies Bodies Bodies," people keep getting eliminated, but in a weird way, the movie isn't a horror movie (and that might limit it commercially). The slasher isn't some mythical force of looming evil, and in fact a couple of murders are committed right in front of us, by characters we can see. Greg (Lee Pace), the token oldest member of the group, is the stocky, woodsy 40-year-old guy who's been dating Alice (Rachel Sennott), he's considered an outsider, so when he's lying in the basement gym meditating under its light. therapy mask, women surround him like he's the killer. Weapons are at hand, and soon they will be being wielded. Fear and paranoia increase; the more Greg tries to protect himself, the more he seems to be threatening them. It's an explosive sequence that culminates in an act of violence by the last person we expected to do it.