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11th October 2024
12:01am BST
A common and valid complaint about mainstream US cinema today is that there are too many sequels, remakes and reboots.
While this may be the case in terms of hugely budgeted tentpole releases by big studios, we'd argue that there are plenty of entertaining yet hugely original movies being made by American indie film companies such as A24 and Neon.
One such example is Bodies Bodies Bodies, a 2022 movie produced by A24 on a budget of just $3 million that playfully and ambitiously mixes several different genres to great results, in the process putting a genius spin on the whodunnit-style story.
Streaming on Netflix right now, the film mainly centres on Bee (Maria Bakalova, Borat 2), a working-class Eastern European woman, and her wealthy new girlfriend Sophie (Amandla Stenberg, The Acolyte).
As a hurricane is about to descend, the pair ventures to a mansion in a New York suburb owned by the family of David (Pete Davidson, SNL), one of Sophie's friends. This is in order to party through the storm.
Upon arriving, however, it becomes clear that there is some bad blood between Sophie and some of the other attendees at the lavish house - characters played by Chase Sui Wonders (Bupkis), Lee Pace (Foundation), Myha'la Herrold (Industry) and Rachel Sennott (Bottoms).
On top of this, Bee - despite her best efforts - struggles to properly connect with Sophie's friends.
As the group indulge in drink and drugs throughout the night, tensions between them bubble more and more to the surface.
When one partygoer is found dead with a blood-stained weapon nearby and the gang is stranded in the mansion due to the hurricane, they rapidly turn on each other as they try to identify which one of them is the killer.
While marketed like a slasher horror, Bodies Bodies Bodies is really more of an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery - one that finds plenty of dark comedy out of the idea that instead of a master detective in the vein of Hercule Poirot investigating the killing, it's six narcissistic and self-obsessed Gen Zers on the case.
As can maybe be expected, the entire group are wildly unequipped to deal with the situation. They quickly resort to using petty grievances that they have with each other as justifications for who the murderer may be - accusing each other in the process of "gaslighting", of "triggering, toxic behaviour" and, in one particularly shocking moment, of being bad podcasters.
Not helping matters is how drunk and high the group are and that the storm has knocked out the mansion's power and their mobile phones' signal. The end result: the gang wind up making the terrible central situation 10 times worse.
As the movie's director Halina Reijn (who made the much-anticipated upcoming erotic thriller Babygirl with Nicole Kidman) said to The New York Times about the characters of Bodies Bodies Bodies: “When the Wi-Fi goes out, it’s like they lose oxygen.”
Also on her characters' continued efforts to make their friend's death all about them, Reijn adds: "We can totally live in the face of death and still speak about things that are so unimportant but so big to us.
"I find that funny and tragic, of course, at the same time."
You could accuse the Bodies Bodies Bodies script - written by Kristen Roupenian (Cat Person) and Sarah DeLappe (The Wolves) - of being built around one big joke. But in fairness, it's a pretty great joke.
This is that if even one of the central gang of characters could stop being so selfish or self-conscious for just a moment, they would have very easily been able to work out what led to their pal's death - something which makes the movie feel like a truly unique take on the Agatha Christie-style whodunnit.
A critical and commercial hit upon release (86% on Rotten Tomatoes, $14 million at the box office), Bodies Bodies Bodies is streaming on Netflix in Ireland and the UK right now.
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