A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies targets Gen-Z social politics in the trailer for the slasher satire
The slasher film stars Maria Bakalova, Pete Davidson, Rachel Sennott, Amandla Stenberg, and Lee Pace
Aux News Bodies
A24's hitting the slasher flicks hard this year. It kicked off 2022 with the Texas-set porno-horror X, and is now following it up with the Gen-Z satire slasher, Bodies Bodies Bodies. As with any slasher, the bodies of victims usually begin to pile up, hence the need for not just Bodies, but Bodies Bodies Bodies.
The official description for the film reads:
When a group of rich 20-somethings plan a hurricane party at a remote family mansion, a party game turns deadly in this fresh and funny look at backstabbing, fake friends, and one party gone very, very wrong.
In the trailer, things start just as any low-key weekend getaway would, with champagne, dancing on the pool table, and lots of squealing. That is, until someone gets the wonderful idea to play a game called “Bodies Bodies Bodies” which, for this group, usually just ends in tears. When one of them actually becomes the target of a murder, this tight-knit circle of friends begins to fall apart, and that’s when the flashy satire elements go on full display.
“You’re always gaslighting me-”
“You fucking trigger me-”
“You’re so toxic-”
“You’re silencing me!”
Each of these friends begins to accuse the other of manipulative behavior, using therapy terms that hardly hold meaning anymore due to their widespread misuse on the internet. Also, Pete Davidson is there, hitting a Juul and talking about how he “fucks.”
Bodies Bodies Bodies stars Davidson, Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby), Myha’la Herrold (Industry), Chase Sui Wonders (Generation), and Lee Pace. Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn (Instinct) directed the film from a script penned by playwright Sarah DeLappe. The film is based on a screenplay by “Cat Person” writer Kristen Roupenian.
For fans of A24 horrors, Bodies Bodies Bodies joins the hefty roster they’ve presented so far this year. With Ti West’s X in the headlights and Alex Garland’s Men arriving soon, Bodies Bodies Bodies will arrive in theaters on August 5.
69 Comments
So…we’ll be happy when the characters are killed off?
First time someone’s boo’d the Last Girl.
If the killer’s motivation is no one knowing how to punctuate a fucking sentence without getting triggered, I’ll buy my ticket right now.
The appropriate way to punctuate the end of a sentence is lol, obviously lol
Or lmao for that extra bit of the condescending prick factor.
Wait, are emojis no longer appropriate punctuation?
Why, I don’t see how we couldn’t be.
I mean, it’s a slasher movie, so let’s be honest, that’s kind of always been the point.
Solid fucking cast. I find a lot of satire really struggles lately with the Milennial/Gen Z commentary, they can point out some of the absurdity like our virtue signalling, but they can never bring it a step further(and please something beyond “cancel culture”). This looks like it might be ready to dig a little deeper!
As the parent of teen girls this film’s vocabulary may hit too close to home. I assure you, this kind of deflection is the standard debate tactic.“Stop silencing me!” is fun because you can usually rebut with “well someone has to because what you’re saying makes absolutely no sense and you need to abandon that argument.” Which normally results in a stunned look like you just took away a child’s lollipop.
I don’t get what “silencing” is supposed to mean. Are they literally being robbed of the power of speech? If not, in what figurative sense are they being “silenced”?
That’s what’s so fun! It’s utter bullshit! It’s an extrapolation of how victims or activists are sometimes ignored or shut down by more powerful interests, i.e. actually being denied platforms to speak something that may need to be said. Which makes usage like in that trailer clip all the more rich and eye-rolly. I try not to laugh but jesus sometimes I can’t help myself, which really doesn’t help in the moment.
note taking continues
“Silencing” is the act of reducing another person’s web of lies to a single word: silencing.
Father of 3 teenage boys…..*takes notes
You sound like a horrible prick of a parent
Just a friendly reminder to all that the term Millennial refers to people ages roughly 30 to 40 🙂
Mere children, in other words. Get off my lawn!
The issue is that it’s hard to do it without sounding like a conservative crank, which is a shame because someone seriously needs to.
true true, and throwing Pete Davidson who is sort of a conservative crank in the cast gives some eye brow raises. A lot of time it comes off bitter though, instead of just highlighting that each generation brings their own irksome behaviour to the table, for better or worse.And there is this weird topsy turvy thing with Gen Z, who I admire for calling bullshit on creeps and really just saying fuck it when it comes to expectations about gender etc, but seem to be unable to call out their own bullshit.
our virtue signalling
Honest question, is virtue signalling different from being holier-than-thou?
Cause if so, then it’s a generational thing. If not, then it’s an everyone thing and has been for centuries.
I think it’s different in the sense that being holier-than-thou comes with a lot of traditional moralism, while virtue signalling tries to cover up a lot of that traditional moralism with some signalling that you’re different than your white wealth hoarding parents. but more often than not the person isn’t actually different despite what ultra liberal ideas they present. Even a lot of youth sharing things around defunding the police, I think they know it’s not actually going to happen. or at least they would never actually do anything except sharing something on social media to make it happen, so it’s just virtue signalling without any action.
Well said. It’s almost impressive how virtue signalling is arguably both more complicated and yet more shallow than being holier-than-thou.
“Haha they said trigger, toxic, and silencing, this is brilliant satire! Young people are stupid!”
I know that as an Xennial I’m not exactly the most in touch with today’s youth, but this comes across as having been written by someone who really hates Gen Z.
As a fellow old, I’ll probably forget about this movie before it’s even released. But, you know, everyone always hates “the kids.” It’s always been that way… [SHRIEKS; FADES TO DUST]
Someone had to do it
Yeah, but I didn’t write it.
Not sure we need more satire of young people by writers in their 40s.
Have you seen or read DeLappe’s Pulitzer Finalist “The Wolves”? Plus, she’s 32.
32’s the new 40, 28’s the new 50 and 72’s the new 21.
What’s 119?
119’s the new 2. Like you’re in diapers and you can’t speak and you’re basically an invalid. Hence a baby.
What’s the actual 40? Asking for a friend who may or may not have turned 40 this year, why, what have you heard, stop looking at me like that.
40 is the new 33. You’re not as sprightly as you were as a college students but also you’re now younger as a 40 then you would be as a 1980!40 year old. 33 is a nice age to be in.
Yeah, I can live with that. I mean, my friend can live with that. Ahem.
It really does nothing for me to see the “youths” satirized in media. It kind of feels like punching down, even if written from someone living that perspective (or close to it) and it’s just kinda…sad? I guess? I dunno, maybe I’m just older and I don’t “get it” but in my opinion satire should attack powerful subjects (politics, war, the wealthy elites) and not, like, kids. I guess they’re rich kids so that makes it okay, I dunno. Suppose I’ll wait for reviews to see how it actually plays out before giving it a shot.
There are more things to satirize in the world than just headlines.
Considering the writer and cast, this seems like self-satire to me. I don’t think the punching down rule applies.
I find the whole notion of “punching up/down” to be a rather useless concept in satire. Satire should make fun of the ridiculous, and there’s no monopoly on that among the powerful. Trying too hard to “punch up” you end up with well meaning but painfully unfunny stuff like Adam McKay’s recent movies like Vice and Don’t Look Up.
Ok boomer
I’m actually a GenXer, but we seem to have been deleted from the usual debates on generations.
I enjoy that we’re ignored…
Every single generation has been satirized, this is no different. It doesn’t have to be mean spirited, but every generation blows smoke up their own ass and that’s where the comedy lays.
Lol you think “satirizing youth” is punching down? There’s no hope for you.
In addition to being young, the characters are all smug rich pricks, so it’s also punching up. Plus, well, trying to act like an entire generation should be immune to being made fun of a little bit seems kind of over-defensive. Young people are no more immune to qualities that deserve having the piss taken out of them from time to time than anyone else.
Nah, everyone deserves to be made fun of from time to time (and yes, this includes historically marginalized groups). If you act ridiculous, you should be ridiculed for it.
“A hurricane party”? I hope that is not a real thing. If so it is a really stupid starting point for the concept
I’ve seen other comments say it’s a thing and didn’t sound too stupid. Just people having to hunker down together when a hurricane happens. Then might as well do something fun to pass the time.
I spent some time in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and that’s really kind of how people spend hurricanes — they board up/shutter the windows, stock up on food and drink and wait it out, Masque of the Red Death style.
If you can afford to evacuate you should probably do that & then party in a city that isn’t being lashed by a hurricane, though
Look at Mr. Moneybags-who-doesn’t-have-to-face-death-in-a-slight-financial-emergency over here!
I get your point, but it kind of depends on the severity of the hurricane, though. Some of them are perfectly safe to hunker down and wait out.
Yes some hurricanes lead to “mandatory” evacuations but not always
I’ve been to one, sort of. There was no evacuation order, they just told everyone to stay in and close shutters/board windows as needed. I was coming down with something and wasn’t going to leave the cat but my friends insisted I just come over with the cat so I wouldn’t be alone. I mostly just slept while everyone around me got drunk and watched the news. It’s definitely not a great idea if you’re going to be blasted by a cat 5 and should evacuate instead, but if everyone plays safe it’s an OK way to pass the time.
My most recent experience with a hurricane was Laura, a (near) Cat 5 that I should have evacuated for, so in my head that is not something you want to party about if it is a cat 1 or something, whatever I guess, I would probably do that
It’s definitely a “safety first” thing.
It does kind of sound like the kind of thing a bunch of clueless rich assholes who are lucky enough to have decent shelter and resources, who are young enough to think they’re basically immortal and who are sheltered and coddled enough to assume they probably won’t suffer any significant negative repercussions from being in such a situation would think was pretty cool, though.
Unfortunately yes, maybe not the worst background for a horror movie really
Maria Bakalova is talented, but her characters have a tough time. First Rudy Guilani tries to statutory rape her & now this
If the movie doesn’t even mention socialism, it’s not about youth politics, it’s about youth politics on Twitter.
I like social satire horror films, and the cast is good, but the tone of this trailer was exhausting. Just a bingo card of Gen Z phrases, divorced from context and presented as inherently mockable. The way people talk online is very different from the way they talk in real life among their friends, and there’s so much more to mock about Gen Z! If anything, I find terms like “gaslighting” and “holding space” and “silencing” as depicted here are more often used ironically and self-referentially, poking fun at their ubiquity and semantic flattening online.I didn’t love White Lotus, but it did a great job with its “Mean Girls” in a way that made them funny and recognizably Gen Z, but not caricatures. And Slave Play did an excellent job mocking the performative use of activist and cognitive therapy terminology in certain spaces.
Looks like this could be one of A24’s…lesser works.
A24 is a distribution company, not a production company. They have absolutely nothing to do with the production of the films.
Inaccurate. They USED to be “just” a distributor, but they have gotten into film (and TV) production in recent years too. Bodies Bodies Bodies is one of the films they have actually produced, as well as distributed. Look it up.
This looks like trash.
A24 turned into Blumhouse so gradually I didn’t even notice
They’ve still got a pretty stellar track record actually. Aside from False Positive, this really is the only movie that looks like they’re phoning it in. And half of that is Pete Davidson.
I also didn’t like Lamb, but that’s personal taste. It’s by no means standard horror fare.
I’m just here to note how awful “the Rental” was