An abominable assortment of Gen-Z trust babies and two less-affluent love interests gather in a remote mansion during a hurricane to do a lot of drugs, party, and eventually realize they're in a horror movie and may not escape alive. The audience, meanwhile, realizes that the film also wants to be a black comedy/satire and, since most of the characters are loathsome, self-centred twits, we don't care too much when the bodies bodies bodies start dropping.
The direction, by Halina Reijn, and the script, by Sarah DeLappe and Kristen Roupenian, at least keep us wondering how this hurricane party will finish. We don't see the circumstances of the first killing. Most subsequent deaths occur on-camera. They still bring us no closer to the truth. For a film furnished with the thrift shop tropes of the closed circle mystery and the slasher movie, Bodies Bodies Bodies fares well.
The young cast (Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Rachel Sennott, Chase Sui Wonders, Pete Davidson, Myha'la Herrold, and Lee Pace) give solid performances. They have been instructed, however, in the Marlon Brando school, and mumble their way through much of the dialogue. I was thankful for subtitles. Whether their characters are fair or accurate depictions of people raised on affluence and influencers remain open questions. Blame objections on plot and genre requirements.
The undercurrents of darkly comic satire become blatant towards the end. One scene has the remaining characters throwing out every hashtag-worthy, cringeworthy phrase and clichéd Zoomer pose, while failing to comment on the fact that, yes, one of them is holding the gun that another warned them about. Meanwhile, moments and lives Tiktok away.
Half-clever, this 2022 film will appeal to some, but not all viewers. Not everyone will want to spend ninety minutes holed up with these entitled, dying dumbasses.
299 words