Alexandra Gutierrez on how feminist horror movie Jennifer’s Body is neither one of these things:
As in biology, sex and death are the two elemental components of the horror film. Nowadays, critics’ warnings of gratuitous nudity and violence in scary movies seem, quite frankly, gratuitous. Psycho‘s iconic shower scene long ago evolved into the literal bloodbath found in films like Hostel II. As far as the exploitation goes, it’s hard to deny that the losers under the scythes are largely — and plainly — women.
Enter Diablo Cody, feminist screenwriter of Juno and avowed horror aficionado. Her second film, Jennifer’s Body, directed by Girlfight creator Karyn Kusama, is out to reclaim the genre and “subvert [its] tropes” in an effort to speak to the growing audience of female horror fans. Could Jennifer’s Body offer a feminist twist on a genre that seems hostile to women on its face? Their project could have — and should have — worked.
