‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ review: A committed, youthful ensemble isn’t enough to keep this horror house party going [Grade: C] | SXSW

Tell me if you have heard this one before? A group of friends, who haven’t seen each other in a while, are trapped in a mansion in the dark during the middle of a hurricane. When one of them turns up dead, mayhem ensues, with the group turning to every possibility in the book to determine who the killer is. It’s a simple yet effective way of telling a horror mystery, and if you have a good cast, possibly some humor, and a little bite of a commentary on a relevant issue going on in today’s world, then you’ve got yourself a good little horror movie for the most part. But with Halina Reijin’s new film Bodies Bodies Bodies, all these parts are present, just not executed to their full potential.

Bee (Maria Bakalova) and Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) have been dating for a couple of weeks and in the early stages of their relationship, they can’t keep their hands off each other. They know very little about each other, but they are exactly what they need right now given that Bee is very lonely, with only her mom in her life, and Sophie just getting out of rehab and being sober for the first time in years. Upon making out in the car when we first meet the couple, Sophie tells Bee that she loves her, with Bee’s stoic, unreciprocated response speaking volumes early on. The young couple are on their way to meet Sophie’s friends Jordan (Myha’la Herrold), Alice (Rachel Sennott) and Emma (Chase Sui Wonders) at her best friend David’s (Pete Davidson) house. When they arrive and discover Alice has brought Greg (Lee Pace), a relaxed, vet who she has been recently dating, along with her. The reception to Sophie’s return is mixed at best, with Jordan and Emma frustrated that she is there without responding to their group chat in weeks and falling off the face of the world.

As the group get over Bee and Sophie’s arrive, they start to hang out, drink, do all the drugs they can find as they wait out the storms. This is where the film is at its strongest, with the talented ensemble bonding together with mayhem and laughter behind every action. A dance party sequence about thirty minutes in draws the battle lines for the rest of the film, striking the right balance of who is one whose side and where conflict might arise from as the night plays out. Looking to change things up, the group start to play the titular game, Bodies Bodies Bodies, a murder in the dark/killer-killer/mafia-style game where everyone has to figure out who the murderer is. Knowing full well this will get the group unsettled and upset, they go about playing it, starting by slapping one of the people in the group in the face, and hiding from each other till a body is found, thus the remaining players figure out who the killer is.

The first time playing it is exactly the disaster they expected it to be, with David and Greg getting into it over David’s insecurities about this handsome stranger being in his house with his friends. Once both guys go their separate ways for the night, the girls decide to play without them, and when the lights go out, as they are hiding, Bee finds David’s dead body outside, with his throat cut wide open. From this moment, the party and fun is over and the mystery begins in determining who is the killer amongst the remaining members of the house and who can and can’t be trusted. This is also where the movie starts to fall apart and becomes at odds with itself.

As we dive deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole to find the killer, it becomes every girl for themselves, as secrets and insults are thrown at each other left and right to justify their own fear of the terrifying situation they are in. It is an on the nose encapsulation of the Gen Z era we are living in, where the superficial, egocentric mentality of this generation runs through every conversation and actions these girls present. Each actress was given the ability to bring their own experiences and life lessons to their characters, and those additions show alongside crackling dialogue when the group is going at each other’s throats. Bakalova, Stenberg and Herrold are particularly strong, bring the right kind of confusion, anger, and urgency to their performances, while Sennott and Wonders carry the films humor, delivering frustratingly humorous one–liners.

But the major problems with Bodies Bodies Bodies is that it’s not able to keep the momentum going the entire time, and it doesn’t know what kind of horror film is wants to be by the end. At a 95-minute run time, Reijn and her cinematographer Jasper Wolf linger the camera too much on events that ultimately don’t matter. A few of scenes where Bee is searching or hiding in the dark feel like they are out right out of the A24 playbook of slow, melancholy horror pictures that have been labeled as “elevated horror.” This would be fine in something else but in a movie that’s first 45 minutes has so much liveliness energy, the drop off is significant and thus you feel as if you are being toyed with. And while the look at Gen Z is good in its presentation, its resolution, especially at the end, leaves a lot to be desired, and thus it feels like punches were being pulled, and the ending is left for shock value and laughter rather than thematic relevance.

Bodies Bodies Bodies is a commendable attempt by all involved but just doesn’t know how to stick the landing to make its larger ideas and commentary gel together.

Grade: C

This review is from the SXSW Film Festival. The film will be released by A24.

Photo: Gwen Capistran