When a group of rich 20-somethings plans a hurricane party at a remote family mansion, a party game turns deadly in this fresh and funny look at backstabbing, fake friends, and one party gone very wrong.
It comes naturally to lampoon the younger generation. Every passing generation sees the tidal shift from their world to the next as equal parts absurd and comical. “Bodies Bodies Bodies” captures the intricacies of Gen Z’s relationship to the internet and performative personalities and ultimately revels in the chaos by offering us a short but sly whodunit caged in a wealthy mansion.
You know something will go wrong when a bunch of wealthy twenty-somethings (and a few significant others) get together for a hurricane party. The idea of celebrating cataclysmic forces with copious booze and drugs invites disaster. When they all settle down to play a mafia-esque game, it turns out they aren’t playing a game. Someone’s hunting the girls, and the killer could just as easily be one of them.
“Bodies Bodies Bodies” plays out like a slasher-whodunit. At any given moment, we’re trying to suss out who might be the killer and why while simultaneously fighting to see who dies. The aforementioned game only provides the context for the horror. Essentially the film’s concerned with the relationships between each girl. These female friendships are stilted after years of rehashing old plots, and everyone’s mad at everyone else for some reason or another.
The film succeeds in selling us complex dynamics. The thoroughly woven enmity between multiple characters rides on a believable dynamic: old fights get brought back up, alcohol makes lips loosen, and a rehabilitated addict gets stuck in a party full of cocaine. Yes, it’s got plenty of hilarious humor, and everyone sticks the landing in that regard, but the film’s strength is its honestly-messed-up social dynamic.
Pete Davidson carries the first thirty minutes with the douchiest bit role (admittedly, his ad-libs got the most laughs.) On the opposite side of the asshole spectrum sits Lee Pace, whose goofy inability to read the room only makes things funnier. Sure the two men drive the early part of the film, but the performances, by and large, rest on the women.
Maria Bakalova grounds us as the outsider to the group, Bee. Her newfound relationship with rehabilitated Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) brings her into this hurricane party, meeting everyone for the first time even as old rivalries flare up. There’s the ditzy beauty queen Emma played by Chase Sui Wonders. Rachel Sennott plays motormouth Alice (whose podcast everyone loves to hate). Lastly, Myha’la Herrold plays the practical Jordan. Jordan’s no-nonsense stands out in the crowd of insta-model-Tik-Tokkers even though we learn that’s a veneer too.
The movie uses a few fast production techniques for various effects. Immediately when the light dies, the characters turn on their phone lights. Those lights serve as spotlights for most of the film and create sparse cinematography that’s careful about what it shows and doesn’t. The camera stays handheld. It whips around from character to character, often struggling to keep up. These two moves can speed up production quickly and, in a less-practiced director’s hands, feel like a gimmick rather than a storytelling method. Only in one instance of manic wrestling did the lighting and camera movements work against the movie, as I couldn’t make heads or tails of the action. The rest of the time, it functions well to string together scenes and keep us on our toes.
This comedy of errors settles for a sad ending. At times the Gen Z writing felt like punching down. Sure, the lexicon of a new generation feels entirely arbitrary, and these characters don’t fully understand what they’re talking about. In one scene, Rachel Sennott’s Alice comforts Bee when she says her mother suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. She then immediately redirects the conversation back to herself by confessing she has body dysmorphia. The women all carry privilege like it’s a weight when in reality, the movie shows them to be vapider than we imagined. It’s a bit trite, and the ending feels like it’s supposed to be some strong satire, but I came away wondering what was said.
“Bodies Bodies Bodies” hit plenty of notes. There are gruesome deaths aplenty. Tons of Gen Z jokes land, and Pete Davidson gets his throat slit. That alone might draw a crowd. As a slasher, it performed above expectations. It sometimes feels lacking as a Gen Z comedy, but the relationship bonds are there.
In Theaters Friday, August 12th
