Jennifer's Body (2009) Opinion

Disclaimer: Jennifer's Body opinion post was originally posted August 30, 2021 and was updated June 20, 2025.

If you're interested in a more recent review of Jennifer's Body (2009) that dives into the toxic friendship between the 2 lead characters, Needy and Jennifer, then please click here. The below post is an older review of the movie that is less in depth and focused on my own viewing experience and love for the film. You can watch Jennifer's Body now by clicking here or renting by clicking here. If you're interested in adding a DVD copy of Jennifer's Body (I definitely have) to your collection they go for pretty cheap on Amazon.

Long, long ago in a time before we realized we all knew what late stage capitalism was Jennifer’s Body (2009) premiered following a typical horror press tour that focused on the lead, Megan Fox's attractiveness. To the dismay of teenage boys across the world the film catered to an audience not sitting through over an hour of content just to see a naked Fox swimming in a lake. I recall trying to sneak into the R rated feature, not necessarily a horror fan at the time but a fan of Megan Fox, who was definitely my favorite part of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004). Unfortunately for the version of me that couldn't get into R rated films wihtout parental supervision I had to wait for the movie to hit a Comcast channel. The first time I caught it on I set a DVR recording and waited. That recording lasted on our DVR for years and played almost nightly through various moves and school changes.

From my first viewing I became entranced which further confused me when I recalled people hated it so much, women and men critics alike. Adults and teens mocked it in passing if they even took it seriously enough to know about to begin with. Like many Tumblr girlies of the time period that followed I wanted to be Jennifer and was in awe of her like Needy even though I naturally related more to Needy, played by Amanda Seyfried. The humor matched and exceeded my own creativity which further helped me see myself in the characters, watching over and over like the outcome might be different on the 100th watch. Be it the teenage angst or the female rage I felt this movie spoke to me in a language I understood and needed at the time. Frankly, I didn’t mind if Jennifer ate all of the boys in the movie as long as I got to watch her and Needy hide the bodies.

When I watch it as an adult I feel like I'm stepping into a time capsule to only a handful of years ago that feel an entire galaxy away, like a weird dream that I can barely recall. In that place jokes trended on the side of not so PC without being intentionally offensive or a troll and the entanglements of toxic female friendship aired on the side of romantic partnerships without the language or knowledge to describe any of it. Before we knew the language of mental health diagnosis or understood the pathology behind behavior lots of things felt supernatural or happening on an island of your very own hellish nightmare. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for the progress we have made in respecting ourselves and one another as human beings but returning to one's adolescence can be a reflective space worth venturing into. Jennifer's Body is one of my favorite movies and I've admitted that and then had to defend it within the same sentence based on a crazy look or wild reaction.