BODIES, BODIES, BODIES (2022)

 

(Director: Halina Reijn. Screenwriter: Sarah DeLappe, her screenplay based on Kristen Roupenian’s story.)

Review

David (Pete Davidson) and four rich, college-age friends and two guests gather at David’s house for a hurricane-watch party, where they drink, have sex, swim, and hang out. They also play an inebriated version of the film-titular Improv Game (also called Murder in the Dark, whose players run around in the dark while a killer “murders” them by touching them). When one of them turns up dead under unnatural circumstances, all their racial, sexual, and youthful insecurities come violently to the surface, resulting in an escalating cycle of death.

This slick, woke-satirical comedy slasher—Roupenian’s source story hewed closer to satire then DeLappe’s killer-on-the-loose screenplay—is solid and often funny, its cinematography flashy, its editing tight (hello, Julia Bloch and Taylor Levy), and its pacing quick. Viewers looking for an Old School, dead-of-night atmospheric slasher flick might not want to invest time in it, as it’s geared toward hashtag-hooked twenty-somethings (whose mindsets are also skewered in BODIES).

Its solid cast, a few who play intentionally annoying characters, includes:. Amandla Stenbert (SLEEPY HOLLOW, 2013-14) as Sophie, a former wild-card drug addict, and girlfriend to quiet, new-to-the-group and level-headed Bee (Maria Bakalova, BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM, 2020); Rachel Sennott as Alice, an overly emotional, über-woke podcaster; Myhal’la Herrold as Jordan, Sophie’s control-freak, action-oriented ex; and Lee Pace as Greg, as a chill, middle-aged, New Age-therapy guy.

BODIES, if you are okay with its well-directed flashy, MTV-style shooting style, sometimes irritating characters, and light gore, might enjoy this entertaining, quick-moving flick. I don’t know that I’d want to see it more than once, but I still got a kick out of it.