★★★★✰
When a group of 20-something friends are stranded in a remote mansion during a hurricane, an innocent party game turns into a real-life murder mystery as the friends suspect a killer to be in their midst. This is Dutch director Halina Reijn’s English directorial debut, and for a film that has garnered quite a lot of publicity on social media (for a variety of reasons), Bodies Bodies Bodies doesn’t disappoint.
At first, Bodies Bodies Bodies will feel somewhat familiar. It opens with a shot of Bee (Maria Bakalova) and Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) kissing in a car outside of a mansion. As they make their way inside, the tension is immediately clear. The supposed “friends” that Sophie is visiting clearly don’t want her there—they whisper to each other about her presence before confronting her for showing up with no warning and bringing her new girlfriend, who the others have never met. It’s a clash of egos that feels all too familiar in teen horror flicks, but Bodies feels unique in its approach to modern society.
Reijn doesn’t shy away from the more sensitive aspects of our culture, taking aim at a society that would rather argue semantics than learn to understand each other on an interpersonal level. Surface-level discussions around toxic masculinity, gaslighting, and addiction eventually devolve into a night of pure carnage, with the film perhaps suggesting that it is this lack of empathy that will lead to societal collapse. Such messaging is to be expected from screenwriter Kristen Roupenian, whose short story for The New Yorker Cat Person went viral in 2017 for its depiction of the millennial dating scene. Bodies Bodies Bodies offers a similar rumination on modern life, albeit more focused on the intricacies of Gen Z this time around.
In a cast of pitch-perfect performances, Maria Bakalova holds her own. She shines as Bee, a working-class student just trying to fit in with her wealthy girlfriend’s friends. You feel every emotion that Bakalova feels intimately—every moment of nervousness, every look of fear feels so honest that it’s almost impossible to not take her side. She gives by and large the best performance here, which is saying something when you consider the fact that everyone in this film is excellent in their assigned roles. Pete Davidson is the perfect image of a millennial boyfriend, Rachel Sennott plays a valley girl like no other, and Lee Pace is a convincing (and often unnerving) outsider. Every character feels fully fleshed out and completely individual, but in a sea of great performances, it is Bakalova’s earnestness that will no doubt win audiences over.
However, the film isn’t without its faults. As hilarious as the Gen Z quips are, some scenes veer into pastiche, and the abundance of buzzwords can sometimes feel a little like overkill. That being said, much of the film’s content is handled expertly, and Rachel Sennott crying “He’s a libra moon! That says a lot!” feels like the kind of line that will no doubt play on a loop in your mind immediately after you’ve heard it. For a film that can at times feel excessive in its pointed dialogue, its depiction of young relationships and the pressures of modern expectations makes it one of the more realistic slasher films of recent times.
The Verdict
In an age where buzzwords are a penny a dozen and every human interaction is pathologised, Halina Reijn has crafted a film that is pitch-perfect in its critique of the chronically online generation. With disarming humour and a killer soundtrack, Bodies Bodies Bodies has cemented its place in the canon of recent horror.
Words by Nadira Begum
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