The Beginning

We open at the end, Jennifer lying in bed...

...with the glow of the TV casting an empty feeling, a work-out infomercial plays in the background as Jennifer licks a piece of her hair and looks through her yearbook. In the window beside her we can see Needy, hood up and looking menacing at Jennifer. She is gone by the time Jennifer looks out the window, looking tired and sickly, still stunning because it’s Megan Fox but a definitely dimmed version. The voiceover and first words of the film are from the main character, Needy, “hell is a teenage girl,” which I’m sure made male audiences groan in confusion.

We snap to the future and Needy explains her current circumstances as an inmate in a psych ward. She’s the narrator of the story and is telling it in hindsight after the events that led to her being there. From early in the movie, it’s clear that Needy and Jennifer have a co-dependent relationship with one another, a frenemy type situation built on years of history. They are thick as thieves despite being quite different, Needy dulling herself down to calm some of Jennifer’s insecurities.

Based on the reactions from their peers they have...

...always had a relationship that bordered on romance regarding how they treated one another and what they expected from one another. Chip Dove, Needy’s boyfriend played by Johnny Simmons, talks about how close the pair are while Needy gets ready to go out with Jennifer to the concert. He talks badly about their plan, and she explains what salty is and that he is that, or as Jennifer says, lime green Jell-O that can’t even admit it to himself. Jennifer basically demanded that Needy go to the “club” that night and even approved her outfit, but Jennifer can’t do any of that unless Needy lets her.

The band has bad vibes, Needy even overhearing them talking about the likelihood of Jennifer being a virgin after she introduces herself to them, flirtatious and flustered. Nikolai, the band’s lead singer played by Adam Brody, assures the band that she is and that he’s from a small town like this which they clock as a lie he’s told to them in the past. We learn however via Needy informing Jennifer of this convo that she’s not a virgin and has a history of hooking up with older guys around town, like Roman the cop played by Chris Pratt. As the band plays the song seems to entrance Jennifer while Needy seems entranced by Jennifer until the fire in the bar begins.

The Middle

The full events of the night aren’t told until much later...

...in the movie but at the jump it’s known that a fire erupted in Melody Lanes that killed a bunch of locals. Needy leads Jennifer out through the window in the bathroom as the flames take over the bar, it seems like they are the only ones making it out until the band approaches them, led by Nikolai with a drink he offers Jennifer, noting she’s in shock from the fire. Jennifer enters the van with the band and goes off into the night, Needy going home and calling Chip. Jennifer ends up at Needy’s house however, eating food from the fridge and then vomiting black goo on the floor. We learn later that Jennifer left there and killed Ahmet, the foreign exchange student at their high school, who also escaped from the Melody Lanes fire. This ends up being the only kill that Jennifer is apologetic about.

She goes on to kill a football star, Jonas, played by Josh Emerson, behind the school in the forest and Colin Gray, an emo kid from their school, played by Kyle Gallner in an abandoned house. In a deleted scene from the movie Needy confronts Jennifer in the locker room and she says, “I’m killing boys,” in response to Needy saying she’s killing people and that boys come and go. This mindset perfectly sums up how she pursues and why she pursues her victims. Their utter man-ness enrages her. For example, Jonas’ best friend just died yet he’s down to get frisky with Jennifer in the woods the very next day after mild flirtation from her end. He’s completely entranced by the idea of hooking up with Jennifer, completely overtaken with lust, which is something that Jennifer views as less-than.

When it comes to Colin, she’s proving a point...

...to and getting back at Needy for her not having been aware of Needy and Colin’s friendship. She’s jealous similarly to how Chip is when he finds out about it. By Colin accepting the date despite seeming like he’d be more interested in an intellectual pairing than just a hot girl he proves that he too can be overtaken by lust and that he might be a poser, two things Jennifer views as weaknesses. While Jennifer is killing Colin, Needy and Chip are having sex and during it Needy sees Jennifer as a ghoul over Jonas looking like a ghost in the room with them. Alluding to the psychic connection the two might possess in the next scene, Needy almost hits Jennifer with her car after shutting off Low Shoulder’s song on the radio, then gaining popularity under the guise of being heroes.

Needy gets to her room only to find Jennifer in her bed already, scaring her. The famous scene of the two kissing occurs and notably this also upset male audiences as it’s mostly close ups of the lips, focusing on the sensuality and hesitation rather than the sexual aspects. The kiss is a symbolic turning point of their relationship, Jennifer exerting her power over Needy in the ultimate way to continue like things are and Needy snapping out of her haze to demand an explanation.

Jennifer explains that Low Shoulder...

...sacrificed her next to the Devil’s Kettle waterfall in the woods the night of the fire. They found a ritual online for success and fame by sacrificing a virgin, but they didn’t sacrifice a virgin. The ritual still worked, and they got success following the fire, but Jennifer didn’t die and instead came back as a succubus now existing off human flesh. She also doesn’t seem to want to stop doing that so Needy is placed in a weird spot where she can't do anything but also doesn’t know what to do. Jennifer gaslights Needy once she realizes that Needy is still asking questions rather than going along with things. In order to protect him, Needy breaks up with Chip before their prom only for idiot Chip to agree to go with Jennifer.

Needy isn’t privy to information as things are happening and is doing side research to reach the conclusions that she finds by just talking to Jennifer. There isn’t an effort from Needy to find other solutions to the demon issue Jennifer is facing and almost immediately decides that the only path is to stop Jennifer, watching over her like a guardian to ensure she doesn’t kill any more boys. This rage is more like a simmering, deep-rooted rage within Needy that only becomes clear when she and Jennifer have their confrontation in the pool.

...that the issue many had with the movie was less-so about the movie itself and more-so the women who made it. Rather than characterizing the perception at the time of the film’s release, I’ve included some quotes from articles:

1. “Being a lead (like Megan)...you have that weird pressure of feeling like you have to look attractive.” a direct quote from Amanda Seyfried and “I plan on sucking up my Fox-hate for a few hours and seeing Jennifer’s Body in September. Will You?” - from “Amanda Seyfried rolls her eyes about kissing Megan Fox” by Jen Sabella on AfterEllen.com, August 18, 2009

2. “For all its pedigree, the film is an all-too-routine fright flick saddled with lazy writing and characterization and not much in the way of suspense or terror.” - from “‘Jennifer’s Body’ fails at horror and comedy” by Alonso Duralde on Today.com, September 17, 2009

3. “From her earlier days and nights as blogger and a pole dancer, screenwriter Diablo Cody knows a lot about the power of eyeballs, the predominance of the male gaze and the raging narcissism that feeds so many personalities, good and evil.” - from “How bad do you want it?” by Michael Phillips in Chicago Tribune, September 18, 2009

4. “Jennifer’s Body seems designed more to be quoted than watched.” and “Lines like “Sandbox love never dies,” could be lyrics to the Warped Tour riffs to which Fox slo-mo sashays at the camera” - from “Jennifer’s Body” by Nick Pinkerton on SFWeekly.com, September 18 2009

5. “So, what’s with all the Diablo hate? Don’t a lot of authors create their own vibe?...I’m fascinated by the criticism that Diablo receives for creating a language, as if that, as a writer, is some unspeakable horror. It’s as if people haven’t read ‘Trainspotting’ or watched ‘A Clockwork Orange’ …or listened to a f–cking Shakespeare, as far as I’m concerned.” and “... ‘oh, so this is so appalling that a woman decides to take language back and create it for herself in a meaningful way?’ That’s what gets me, is I ultimately feel like it’s a subtle referendum on her entitlement to her art and there’s a sense that she doesn’t deserve it and that pisses me off a lot.” - Karyn Kusama quotes from “‘Jennifer’s Body’ Director Karyn Kusama On Women In Hollywood, Diablo Cody and Outsiders” by Jenni Miller on MTV.com, September 18, 2009

6. “It’s almost as if no one knows what to do with Megan Fox. They eye her appraisingly…and then hand her a script. They hope for the best. They release a vapid and directionless film. Someone else stumbles on a photo of her…The cycle of abuse continues.” - from “Review: Jennifer’s Body–Cute Dialogue, Less Filling” by Laremy Legel on MTV.com, September 18, 2009

7. “The starlet worked it as hard as she could, but that can’t stop a simple truth about the box office: horror-comedies always tank.” - from “Did Jennifer’s Body Bomb Because of Megan Fox?” by Leslie Gornstein on EOnline.com, September 21, 2009

8. “Megan Fox wields her sexuality like a blunt object–a sledgehammer in lipgloss–in the new horror-comedy Jennifer’s Body.” and “You can’t imagine the character working half as well with any of today’s other brittle young actors, and Fox seems to know it.” - from “Jennifer’s Body” by Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out New York, Issue 729: September 17-23, 2009

9. “I feel like I was mocking the way people perceive me in real life…People assume that I’m self-obsessed or a typical narcissistic starlet…stupid, manipulative, boy crazy…whatever–all of those things.” and “There’s nothing to distract you from my performance. So if it’s bad it’s going to be f–cking bad for me. And if it’s good, then I will have achieved something on some level.” - quotes from Megan Fox cited in the article “Megan Fox Predicted ‘Jennifer’s Body’ Could Be A ‘Complete Failure’” by Eric Ditzian on MTV.com, September 29, 2009

10. “Brody thinks the movie’s female leads and crew should have taken center stage. “The film was directed by a woman, starring two women, written by that year’s screenwriting Oscar winner…And instead they’re like ‘Let’s bury all of that. Don’t tell anyone that. This is for people who like Transformers.’” - direct quote from Adam Brody in “Adam Brody says the negative reaction to Jennifer’s Body ‘felt s–ty,’ film’s poster ‘missed the mark” by Emlyn Travis on EW.com, February 18, 2023

...the intended audience of young women discovered the movie in relative obscurity, often rationalizing the negativity from the outer world and their personal interest in the story. The gap between the two created a perfect breeding ground for a Cult Classic Fandom and sites like Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter fostered the perfect way for that fandom to gain membership. Like most cult-classics, fans argue Jennifer’s Body is overlooked by the general public and far more complex and thought provoking than most would imagine. 

It’s worth noting that over half of the negative reviews mention the movie’s resemblance to the 80’s teen black comedy, Heathers, as an insult without realizing the film's creators intended it to be that way. It’s also clear as day to anyone interested that all of the main people who worked on this film not only took pride in their work but put care, effort, and genuinely thought provoking detail into all of the movie’s facets.

One example is that even the famous kissing scene is not just there to be there but rather serves a purpose tying back to the feminist notes throughout the movie. Cody has said that Kusama and her wanted the scene to be “profound and meaningful” noting their own experiences with teenage relationships became so intense they bordered on intimate. It’s realistic and authentic while addressing a standing question for the film, are they in love?

All areas of the production infused...

...meaning into details like Fox wanting Jennifer to wear almost childlike clothing at times to juxtapose her adult-heavy behaviors or how they did the snake-like jaw opening special effects for demon Jennifer after much consideration. The way the sacrifice scenes are done with the band’s flippant view of Jennifer as only a body and a means to an end, alluding to seeing all women that way as they speak to one another as if she’s not there.

Number one...

...is literally “you’re giving more than you’re getting” which basically defines the whole plot from Needy’s POV. She often goes above and beyond for Jennifer, cleaning up the black goo vomit without asking anything of Jennifer but an explanation, defending her when others bring up her bad behavior, and ultimately avenging her death even after she kills Needy’s boyfriend, Chip. 

Number two, “you no longer trust them” is the second half of the film when Needy starts to pay more attention to the demon red flags and rather than blindly following Jennifer she questions her. Once she begins to connect the dots she no longer trusts Jennifer to even be left unsupervised around Chip for fear she’ll just eat him…or make out with him. 

Number three and four are, “you dread checking your phone” and “you don’t enjoy spending time with them” show up in one of the most iconic scenes from the movie. After eating a football player in the woods behind the school Jennifer is feeling herself and calls Needy. 

Burning her tongue mid-convo with a lighter only for her blackened, burnt tongue to immediately heal and states, “I am a God,” to Needy but Needy seems annoyed to have Jennifer even calling in such a good mood despite all of the tragedy in town. She ends up putting Jennifer on hold to answer Chip’s call. This is in stark contrast to the start of the movie when Needy cannot focus on anything not related to Jennifer even when hanging out with Chip. 

Furthermore, in the first quarter of the movie most scenes have both characters and we know what’s going on in Jennifer’s life through Needy’s POV but as the film progresses we know less and less about her and most of what we do know we learn by watching her rather than through Needy. We see the magnetism through the eyes of the magnet until they start losing pull with one another and become separate entities for the first time. 

This goes directly into number five, "you don't like yourself when you're with them," a very recognizable sign that someone is not the best for you to be around. Needy pieces together what Jennifer is doing and when her confrontation to stop the behavior falls short, she tells Chip the details and warns it's not safe for them to be together, further isolating herself.

Number six...

..."you know they talk shit about you," – when Jennifer convinces Chip to go to the abandoned pool with her to make out she bad mouths Needy and lies about Needy's feelings while representing herself as an authority on the matter. Of course, Chip is also responsible for listening to Jennifer, who he claims to dislike so much, over believing his girlfriend is telling the truth that Jennifer is eating boys.

Number seven, "you compete with them," – showing up as the push and pull with how to handle the predicament Jennifer is in, whether it’s a curse to be cured or a blessing to revel in. Needy is naive and slower to come to reality whereas Jennifer makes the best out of the traumatic events and avoids processing her murder by enjoying her newfound demon-hood. Jennifer wants to eat boys and tell her BFF about it (maybe make her a little jealous too), but Needy wants to stop boys in her town from being murdered by a hungry Jennifer. 

Jennifer is also noticeably disappointed when Needy is able to distract Chip from her attention with physical affection thus making him an unavailable victim and in the same scene does a complete 180 on her interest in Colin’s date request when she finds out Needy is friends with him. Both actions literally push Jennifer to take Colin up on a date with him that she originally rejected five seconds earlier with the plan to eat him now that she’s realized the good aspects of demon-hood wear off and she starts to deteriorate if she doesn’t eat people.

Number eight is self explanatory: you don't think they have good intentions. Personally, I don't hate the idea of Jennifer eating people like a Dexter setup, however the boys she chooses to eat in the movie don't deserve it. This logically makes her intentions bad even if one argues that she is only eating boys to stay alive and well now that she's more demon than girl, it doesn’t matter which boys she's eating because it’s all relative.

I believe intention is a big reason we are able to view Needy in a more positive light by the end of the film. She did kill her best friend but with her newfound demon-bite-induced abilities she is going after greater evils like the bandmates from Low Shoulder that sacrificed Jennifer to go viral. Of course, this goes hand-in-hand with the next sign, "you can't depend on their advice" as Jennifer is proven to lie to get what she wants and obviously stands in opposition to Needy’s goal of keeping everyone relatively innocent safe. 

Number ten, "you're embarrassed by their behavior toward others," is ratcheted up a notch by Jennifer's behavior being murderous rather than just rude or some small slight. It would stand within reason that Needy is not only confused by Jennifer's behavior but scared, angry, appalled, righteous, and disgusted. One moment of actual embarrassment does exist though, when their science teacher, Mr. Wroblewski, breaks the news about the fire and Jennifer responds to one classmate breaking down in tears by laughing. Right before this Needy has to defend their story to another classmate who is our first sign that Low Shoulder is walking away from this tragedy looking like heroes rather than the fire starting murderers they are.

The only sign included in the list...

...that could be argued doesn't apply to the friendship of Needy and Jennifer, number eleven, "you feel used". Both Needy and Jennifer arguably use one another for personal gain but it's undeniable that they love and care for one another and despite playing high school games gone wrong they would, if need be, stop in order to protect one another. I believe that Needy in a lot of ways believes she is helping Jennifer by killing her in the end, releasing her from being a demon and stopping her from continuing down the path she's on. While this is one possibility, it's also arguable that Jennifer knowingly manipulates and influences Needy when she doesn't get her way, for example gaslighting Needy that she came to her house and threw up in her kitchen.

Number thirteen, "you don't know why you're friends with them," can be drawn back to Needy's feelings that their friendship has always been bad for Needy and not beneficial but that it continues due to its history. Despite them making you feel crappy, often by criticizing you, which is number fourteen, "they criticize you. all. the. time.” Jennifer has conditioned Needy with criticism so much that she knows exactly what to do and not to do in order to not set Jennifer off. In the beginning she's quick to feed into Jennifer's wants and doesn't stand up for herself but by the end she's saying things she knows will piss Jennifer off, like Jennifer being irrelevant.

And finally, number fifteen, "they make you second guess yourself," which is all Jennifer does in order to make sure Needy doesn't expose her or stop her. Despite leading her to the answer and almost telling her multiple times she ultimately chooses to protect herself over confirming Needy’s suspicions. After telling Needy the truth following their moment of closeness after she eats Colin and Needy reacts in a way Jennifer didn’t expect she sows doubt in Needy's mind that she could be imagining things.