The following may contains spoilers for Bodies Bodies Bodies.
Alright sports fans, I have officially abandoned the 31 Days of Musicals in favour of enjoying my life. So, lets get right into an absolute banger of a movie: Bodies Bodies Bodies from the fine folks at A24. A classic tale about the worst people on earth being the absolute worst, and also Pete Davidson is there being himself; and you know what? It absolutely rules.
Director Halina Reijin and writer Sarah DeLappe have managed to assemble one of the most entertaining horror movies that I’ve had the pleasure of watching in 2022. The movie manages to be funny and extremely tense, and sprinkle in enough violent death and carnage to round the whole thing out. I really had low expectations of this one, worried it would be an empty and irritating mess, but it really isn’t. The characters are all extremely likable in how deeply unlikable they are, they are the very definition of deeply toxic people who kind of deserve each other, and inflict pain and suffering for seemingly no reason. It also manages to be a really satisfying whodunnit, that literally had my wife and I sitting on the edge of our seats wondering where things were going to go.
This is how you portray rich people, not as cool and aspirational, but as real and true fucking nightmare human beings, who don’t mean anything they say and who will say anything to ensure that they feel like they’re good people. This is one of the few movies that manages to make jokes about virtue signaling and hypocritical liberal bullshit, without it being some kind of gross right-wing propaganda. Instead, it takes aim at the center from the left in ways that are just so funny and gratifying. What if, instead of us eating the rich, we left them alone to eat themselves?
Along with a sharp-as-hell script, the movie has a spectacularly on-board cast. Amanda Stenberg and Mara Bakalova are the audience anchor characters, but this is an ensemble through and through. It also has the rare honour in this genre we all love of being almost entirely a story about and by women, the male characters have a role to be sure, but this is never their story and it really gives this wonderful and fresh feeling to the whole thing.
It’s hard to say too much about the story without spoiling it, hence the warning at the beginning, but it is so worth just going in as blind as possible. There are red-herrings and turns aplenty, and some really excellent tension throughout; building to a real fucking gut punch that manages to be extremely funny at the same time.
If I write much more, I’ll get to specific and I don’t want to do that, so lets close by saying: seek out this movie. It’s an easy contender for one of my favourites of the year. My expectations were, genuinely, low on this one and I’m so glad I gave it a look anyways. Just think, I could have been watching Kiss Meets the Phantom tonight, and that would have really been a night wasted. So, if you want a solid sexy thriller to check out this spookiest of seasons, add this to the list.