Mixed Opinions: Jennifer's Body (2009)
Jennifer’s Body: The Misunderstood Birth of American Revenge Horror 2.0
When Jennifer’s Body hit theaters in 2009, it belly-flopped harder than a jock at a keg party. Critics trashed it, audiences ghosted it (myself included), and Megan Fox—who could have had a promising career in horror—got relentlessly objectified instead. Fast forward to today, and Jennifer’s Body stands as a feminist cult classic, a queer-coded rage anthem, and, arguably, the blueprint for a new kind of American revenge horror. But as much as it deserves its flowers, it’s not above criticism. Let’s break it all down: the good, the bad, the gay, and the legacy.
The Good: Heart, Humor, and Hellfire
First off, Diablo Cody’s script absolutely slaps when it comes to reimagining what horror could be. Instead of another Final Girl story, we get a female monster—not a victim, but a predator. Jennifer Check isn’t punished for her sexuality (quite the opposite actually); she weaponizes it. Megan Fox’s performance is electric, balancing genuine menace with sharp, gutting vulnerability. It's one of the few times a "hot girl" role actually digs into the monstrous expectations society places on beauty. See also Tamara.
The movie also nails the dark comedy vibe. Between iconic one-liners like “Hell is a teenage girl” and the casual way Jennifer discusses eating boys like she’s reviewing fast food, Jennifer’s Body slices through horror tropes with surgical precision. The humor isn't just edgy for the sake of it—it mirrors the absurdity of teen girlhood in a world that commodifies, consumes, and discards young women.....'s bodies.
The intent here was pretty clear: this was a horror movie for women, for queer audiences, for anyone who's ever been treated like prey in their own life. It’s a movie about trauma, rage, and reclaiming power, wrapped in blood, glitter, and band posters. A through line of queer
The Bad: Marketing Fumbles and Tonal Stumbles
Despite that killer premise, early on it could be foreseen that Jennifer’s Body never stood a chance at the box office. Fox Searchlight completely botched the marketing (this isn't really up for debate). They pitched it as a straight-up "sexy Megan Fox horror" for teenage boys, leaning into male gaze nonsense rather than the sharp feminist horror it really was. Trailers focused on Jennif-I mean Megan’s body and the now-famous kiss scene between Jennifer and Needy, reducing the film’s rich exploration of frenemy-ship, betrayal, and sexuality to cheap titillation. Here at Mixed Reviews HQ, we're not opposed to cheap titillation, BUT we don't advocate misrepresentative marketing.
This betrayal by the marketing team left the film floating in a weird no-man’s land: too smart for the bros, too gross-out for the mainstream girlies of 2009, and too ahead of its time for horror-purist critics locked into tired horror templates.
And, yeah—even once you get past that, the movie itself has some flaws. The tonal shifts are jarring sometimes, veering from snarky teen banter to body horror in a way that can feel clunky instead of seamless. Needy (Amanda Seyfried) spends too much of the movie reacting instead of evolving (she is kinda the protagonist...). Some of the satire, especially around the emo band Low Shoulder, hits harder now in retrospect than it did in the moment. In 2009, people didn’t know what to make of it—was it serious? Was it a joke? Was it both? This is an issue your beloved authors have even to this day (forgive us, Lords! Traci, obvi).
The horror itself also pulls punches. The kills are memorable, but the film never lets itself get truly scary or brutal. It’s horror lite, which works for the allegory but leaves some traditional horror fans cold. Another failure of the marketing.
The LGBTQ+ Perspective: Queer Subtext and Missed Opportunities
From the jump, Jennifer’s Body radiates chaotic bisexual energy. Honestly, so relatable. Jennifer and Needy's relationship is loaded with repressed (and sometimes overt) sexual tension. The iconic kiss scene isn’t just shock value—it reflects the messy, blurry lines between friendship, desire, and resentment. For a lot of queer viewers, Jennifer’s Body captures the complicated, volatile nature of early queer experiences: intimacy weaponized, love, and violence tied together.
That said, some critics argue the movie didn’t go far enough. 👀 The queerness remains subtextual rather than fully embraced. If I had a nickel! Part of that is the 2009 environment—Hollywood was still terrified of making anything openly queer (No, homo!) unless it was played for jokes or tragedy. Part of it is the marketing again: the studio leaned into the kiss as "hot girl on girl action" for dudes instead of a painful expression of the characters' entangled emotions.
Still, even the queerness that is there matters. Jennifer’s Body didn’t need to slap a label on Jennifer or Needy to feel authentic. It’s messy, it’s confusing, and it’s real in a way queer audiences immediately recognized.
A New Type of American Revenge Horror
Here’s where we get spicy: I believe Jennifer’s Body helped launch a new wave of American revenge horror. That from the monster’s point of view.
Old school revenge horror (Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave) focuses on brutal victimization typically in the form of brutal and voyeuristic SA and then gory payback that meets the intensity of the previous violence to HOPEFULLY produce a sense of catharsis in the viewer who you have to HOPE empathizes with the victim protagonist. No, no no. None of that here. Jennifer’s Body flips that. Jennifer doesn’t just survive her trauma—for all intents and purposes, Jennifer Check dies. She becomes something terrifying, something uncontrollable....an unstoppable teenage girl. Honestly, the horror. She's not interested in justice; she's interested in appetite. She isn't a sanitized avenger—she's messy, broken, and dangerous. Which is good, because depending on the audience's views and beliefs, Jennifer does not start off a sympathetic or acceptable victim.
Conclusion: A Flawed, Furious Masterpiece?
Jennifer’s Body wasn’t perfect—but it was necessary. It spoke a language most people weren’t ready to hear in this type of package in 2009: the rage of the exploited, the queer longing of a broken friendship, the horror of being reduced to a body, then weaponizing that body in return.
Today, it feels prophetic. It predicted the rise of messy, complicated female antiheroes. It helped open the door for horror to become a battleground for gender, power, and identity—not just a place for disposable scream queens.
It’s not just that Jennifer’s Body deserves respect. It’s that horror needed it—even if it took a decade plus to realize it.
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