Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and her new girlfriend, Bee (Maria Bakalova) are on their way to their friend, David’s (Pete Davidson), family mansion for a hurricane party.  The twenty-something crew quickly catch up, though there is clear tension between the friends.  Once the storm arrives, they decide to play a hide-and-seek like game, Bodies Bodies Bodies, in which a “murderer” has to creep around the house and “kill” their victims by tagging them.  When the power goes out, and actual dead bodies begin to accumulate, what started out as an innocent game turns into a night of terror for the friends as they begin getting picked off one by one. 

A24’s latest horror comedy is directed by Halina Reijn who is working from a script by Sarah DeLappe.  The ensemble piece follows a simple enough whodunit premise but subs out the stuffy dinner parties for reckless teenage nihilism.  In its setup and how heavily it borrows and bends the tropes of the genre, Bodies Bodies Bodies tries to take on a satirical tone for much of the runtime, however, it never leans in enough to feel that it is fully committed to the act.  Instead, it sits in this strange grey area where the humor in the script flounders because it is unclear if the film is self-aware and poking fun at itself, or just unknowingly cloy. 

The film excels with its cast who all seem to have a general history with each other, with the exception of Bee and another new romantic partner, Greg (Lee Pace), who are able to perfectly embody the outsider syndrome.  Bee in her attempt to fit in and Greg, just trying to keep up with the TikTok generation and prove that he can still hang, allow us an entry point into the world of the film.  Bakalova is saddled with a total enigma of a character that she must define as the quiet, odd-girl of the bunch and while the script does help fill in some of her backstory, it is an incredibly puzzling performance that does not always land.  Pace, on the other hand, brings a manic energy to Greg that is wild, but in a whole different form than the devil may care attitude that the rest of the gang has as they drink and snort their way through the storm.  Surprisingly subdued in his performance, Davidson seems content to remain in the background and rounds out the supporting cast of the ensemble.  The role does not pose much of a challenge for the actor who can play it with his usual unaffected brutish style gaining his laughs by being little more than a big oaf who seems too big and cumbersome for his own body with twinges of unchecked anger. 

The real drivers of the film are Sophie, Alice (Rachel Sennott), Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), and Jordan (Myha’la Herrold).  Their dynamic of a friendship in crisis is the heart of the film as they grapple with their changing lives and paths in life and what that means for a group that had always been together.  Sophie, from early on in the film, we learn has been through rehab after multiple instances of drug overdose, and is now leading a sober lifestyle.  This resolve is quickly put to the test when, despite the group routinely bringing up Sophie’s past, they make very little effort to support her.  Jordan is the other real force in the group as she tries to prove herself as being the most mature, level-headed, and analytical of the group, but she is so self-serious that she does not see the irony that if her friends are, as she is inclined to act like, so beneath her on an intellectual and social level, what does that say about her who makes the choice to continue to hang out with them. 

Jordan also epitomizes the major flaw with the narrative, and it is not a flaw unique to Bodies Bodies Bodies, but rather something that plagues the teen ensemble pieces, especially ones more modern set and that is that all of their problems are manufactured and self-imposed.  The cast is constantly trying to one-up each other on the severity of their deeply personal traumas that they are quick to tell anyone who looks their way all about, while also seeking to constantly downplay what the others in the group are going through.  This self-centered nastiness permeates throughout the 94-minute film and it makes it incredibly hard to invest in any of these characters.    

The two bright notes of the film are Sennott and Wonders.  Sennott finds herself with some of the most consistent laugh lines in the film and works with incredible comedic timing.  If Bodies Bodies Bodies is to be a satire on modern youth culture, Sennott’s Alice, who met Greg online and trusts him instantly because he is a Libra Moon, strikes the perfect balance needed for an effective satire.  Wonders, like Sennott, has the benefit of one of the better-written parts in the film, and she acts with such a natural presence on screen that she steals every scene she is in, even doing the simplest of actions.  Like Alice, Emma is also working to carve out an identity for herself, and while the idea of identity is central to all of the characters in the film, the script really only allows for Emma and Alice to grow in a trackable and compassionate way.   

To be generous, Bodies Bodies Bodies does call to light the struggle of how young people can break out and be themselves when they are connected to everyone, and every thought, at the click of a button.  To combat this, they carve out these niches for themselves that are so drilled down that only they can truly fit this definition they created for themselves, but in doing so tend to find only isolation.  As such, their lives become a competition on who can act out the most and create the most shocking, counter-culture identity for themselves just so that they can say they have found what makes them special.  In its own way, it is kind of tragic that in a search to become unique, to stand out in a world that is completely connected and intertwined together, they never get a chance to truly be themselves, but with the prevalence of social media there is also an inherent narcissism that comes with it, and very few films have been able to achieve a balance and create characters that are able to garner sympathy from the audience. 

Every passing generation of filmmakers creates films that focus on the difficult transition from teenage years into adulthood.  From Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967), Barry Levinson’s Diner (1982), Larry Clark’s Bully (2001), and then Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto (2013), there is no shortage of these types of coming-of-age dramas, but with each passing generation, the films also find themselves more and more imbued with teenage degeneracy.  As such, these films tend to become thornier to outside audiences with each passing generation, maybe itself a bit of proof that since these filmmakers are often commenting on their own adolescence, children need structure and guidance growing up lest they become uncontrollable, self-destructive monsters.   

As far as Bodies Bodies Bodies is concerned, much like its characters, it struggles to find its own identity and as an amalgamation of everything that came before it, it has very little to actually say that is unique to itself.  Its message is too concealed to be a coherent comment on a generation raised by social media – see instead Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade (2018) – its plot is not fleshed out enough to be a competent whodunit – see instead Jonathan Lynn’s Clue (1985) – and it is too self-serious to be a satirical take of the horror genre – see instead Wes Craven’s Scream (1996).  It is trying to accomplish far too much and in doing so becomes lost in itself, but there are enough individual moments of promise throughout that make it an enjoyable, albeit flawed, film to watch.