It’s easy to imagine a Gen Z friend group getting whipped into the sort of frenzy where they’d start killing each other. Whether because of the heightened temperature on social media, the ease of getting your hands on weapons (at least in the United States), or just the natural evolution of a generation taught not to shy away from their feelings, the premise of Bodies Bodies Bodies has the makings of both strong horror and wicked satire – the wickedness coming from how closely it might resemble reality. It’s the latest from distributor A24, celebrating ten years of quality independent films that always feel of the moment. Halina Reijn’s sophomore directorial effort fits in perfectly with that company’s brand and its artistic niche.
Bodies Bodies Bodies carries you on a wave of both its style and its perspective from the opening moments. The first shot is a rather long makeout sesh between the two women we follow into the story, Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova), who are on their way to the remote mountain mansion of Sophie’s best friend, David (Pete Davidson). As their car clings to narrow roads and bisects beautiful forest scapes, we follow it from above to the banging sounds of Charli XCX’s “Hot Girls.” Combined with a piercing electronic score from Disasterpeace, the music throughout sounds like it was made five years from now.
We’re getting a lesbian entre into a typical heteronormative scenario: New couple goes away for the weekend to meet friends, in the flush of early love, but not knowing much in reality about the other person – with hopefully only good surprises in store. Sophie and Bee have only been together six weeks, but there’s an even newer couple there. Alice (Rachel Sennott) has only known Greg (Lee Pace) for a fortnight – but he seems like a nice person, right? His age is the initial biggest hangup among the other friends, who include Emma (Chase Sui Wonders) and Jordan (Myha’la Herrold). “What is he, 40?” (Pace is 43.)
Sophie and Bee are excited to be there, but nobody’s excited to see them. That’s because in addition to the actual hurricane that’s about to befall them, this heralds the arrival of Hurricane Sophie. She’s been in and out of rehab – Jordan has thrice ridden in the back of an ambulance when they thought she was going to die – and those who know suspect that Sophie has ulterior motives for being there, which is for David to convince her parents to restore access to her trust fund. They’ve been partying, but the look on their faces when she arrives is that the party’s over. I mean, she didn’t even say she was coming in their text group.
The party’s only just begun, in a manner of speaking. As the storm rages outside and they rage inside to all sorts of banging beats and lines of cocaine, Sophie suggests they play the game Bodies Bodies Bodies. It’s similar to a game others in our world might know as Killer, where one person randomly draws the killer card, then kills someone in a darkened room. Everyone who isn’t dead has to try to guess who did it. Well, it wouldn’t be a horror movie if this game of Bodies Bodies Bodies didn’t start becoming real.
“A bunch of twentysomethings dying one by one? Isn’t that just every other horror movie out there?” Bodies Bodies Bodies separates itself with its keen sense of understanding how such people really interact in 2022, which is impressive considering that the director herself is 46. Screenwriter Sarah DeLappe, a playwright, is 32, which helps. DeLappe’s dialogue is a knowing wink at today’s online discourse, as people say things like “You’re gaslighting me!” and “I’m an ally!” Taken together in succession in the trailer, they put a fine point on the joke – and it’s a good joke. Spread out over the narrative, they’re little laugh lines that feel like what these characters would really say. In a memorable rant, Davidson’s character even goes off on the word “gaslighting,” declaring it has lost all meaning.
Any number of characters could be gaslighting each other – or none could. Bodies Bodies Bodies, like the game the characters play itself, is a delicious series of questions, of accusations, of reversals of previous suspicions with the appearance of new evidence. The “everybody’s a suspect” formula goes all the way back to Agatha Christie, but here you really believe it, as every character has a potential beef toward or jealousy of every other character – in short, a motive for murder. When that sort of thing appears in other scripts, it’s a narrative convenience, a form of misdirection. Here, it’s a portrait of a generation saddled with “the oppressive weight of our shared history,” as one character puts it. The intense publication of their private selves, the incestuous dating of others from the group, the need for every moment to be pitched to its peak intensity – it’s all put them through the ringer and left them a chewed-up husk.
Reijn’s filming techniques accentuate the feeling of this life – both its best and worst parts. In a similar way to another A24 release, Spring Breakers, we see the intoxication of poolside party life as it transitions into grinding club life, with all the glow sticks and sick bass you can handle. There’s a memorable scene at the start when the characters are submerged in that pool, seemingly for longer than they could ever hold their breath – drowning even in their quieter moments.
There’s a danger in a film like Bodies Bodies Bodies to go too far with the social commentary and cross over into the didactic. Bodies Cubed – if you will – resists this. You’ll never forget that you’re in a movie that’s saying something about where we find ourselves two decades into the 21st century, yet your greater takeaway will be the care the filmmakers put into cleverly resolving the mystery, or horror, or social drama at the film’s centre. Bodies Bodies Bodies is a lot of things, all of them good.
Bodies Bodies Bodies opened yesterday in cinemas.