Bodies Bodies Bodies is a Modern Who Done It Take Down. On Why Bodies Bodies Bodies is a Prophetess Screed, a deconstructionist take down on the entire mystery “Who-Done-It” film genre from top to bottom, and why this particular take down was dying to happen.
First. Have you even heard of the film Bodies, Bodies, Bodies yet? I wouldn’t be too shocked if it flew under your radar. I mean, this particular film seems more like a movie that high schoolers or college students would be into… I think? Who knows, I’m not sure how it was marketed. But I did find myself thinking… THiNCy? Why are we watching this again? Remind me. And the longer I gave this thing line, the more I wondered what the heck was going on. And it wasn’t until the credits rolled… that the movie was completely and entirely done, that it was actually making even an ounce of sense. So, yeah, I am excited to talk about this one – there is a ton to unpack here.
If you are unfamiliar with Bodies Bodies Bodies (wouldn’t it be “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies”?) it was the first Pete Davidson I’ve ever seen so, yeah, that happened. But I’m a huge fan of Lee Pace’s work in Halt and Catch Fire so I was stoked to see him here. Gotta admit though, both he and Pete stick out like proverbial sore thumbs… plural. And one sore thumb is bad enough. I’m not exactly sure how they were cast in this film to be honest. So much so, I’d like to chat with Jodi Angstreich, and Laura Rosenthal to find out if they were mainly just thinking of marketing power, and advertising with their selection? Or if maybe there was something else going on here. Another thing I will repeat, is that this movie is a zeitgeist sea change for me… It is a movie for a decidedly GenY, GenZ even generation focus. As a Generation Xer myself, a lot of the dialog, terms, aphorisms? All lost on me. Maybe I should watch it again and jot vocab usage down to study it! I’m not even kidding. For example, at one point, someone calls out another character as being ableist. Which, I know what ableism is, but it was in the context of psychological dysfunction – if I remember correctly. Which I didn’t even know was a thing! hahah. Kids today are much more savvy in their fair treatment of others, but have begun weaponizing those insights to all new levels of irony. Regardless, if you are unfamiliar with the movie, here’s the trailer, and then we’ll start breaking the movie down – see if we can’t make heads or tails out of it.
Bodies Bodies Bodies is a Modern Who Done It Take Down
Bee (Maria Bakalova – who you know from Borat2 and the Giuliani debacle) is accompanied with her wealthy girlfriend, Sophie (played by Amandla Stenberg, Hunger Games and The Hate You Give). And they join an already under way hurricane party at an enormous estate owned by Sophie’s friend, David (played by Pete Davidson). We also meet David’s actress girlfriend, Emma, a podcaster named Alice, and her boyfriend Greg and Jordan. Oh, and there was one other guest, Max, who left the night before after a fight with David. It’s quickly pretty obvious that there’s some animosity between the group and Sophie. There’s a lot happening under the surface of this one.
Insert lots of drugs and alcohol. Even an impressive moment when Greg hacks the top of a champagne bottle off with an antique sword. Afterwards, the cabal decides they need to play the game bodies, bodies, bodies. From what I can tell, the game is an in-person version of the game Among Us, where a murderer is randomly selected. And the murderer attempts to kill the innocent, and the innocent attempt to find the murderer. Simple enough. Well, after Greg is killed in the game… and the party melts down under the heft of the game, Greg heads to bed and the game shuts down after David gets in a fight with Emma.
The storm piles on the house, and the power goes out, so too does the cell coverage. While hunting for power, Bee stumbles upon David laying outside with his throat slashed. The girls try their best to get help, or get David to the nearest hospital, but the car is dead. (Why is there only one car at this multi-million dollar estate? I’m confused.) Anyway, with that, David dies. Someone fetch Hercule Poirot, we have a MURDER TO SOLVE! Immediately, the group is certain that it is Greg that killed David. When they go to confront Greg he is incredulous as to the accusation that the group is leveling at him. But when he realizes this group of women are serious, he decides to protect himself from their escalating hostility. Then, out of the blue, Bee hammers Greg, and kills him immediately with Greg’s kettle bell. Then soon after, Alice finds Emma dead at the bottom of the stairs. The group is now certain that they are being killed off one by one by a murderer still at large. Certain that the murderer is Bee… they toss her out into the storm.
Wait, let’s stop. Who could it be right now? Who is killing everyone? Do we have a theory as to the mayhem and entropicness, and wherefore it is coming from?? Well, funny you should ask that. From my recollection as to where we are right now – with Bee in the storm and, what, three people dead at this point? Well, the main murder that we know nothing about is the first one. David. Everything that happens from there is just a domino from the first. And this is pretty much true through til the end. So who killed David? That is the question of the day.
Ending of Bodies Bodies Bodies Explained
After about a million different misdirection’s created through finding suspect X with a gun, or Y with someone’s underwear on her possession, we question everyone. Everyone still alive anyway. The only two people that we don’t know the murderer for as the movie ends is David, and Emma. David is found dead with his throat slashed. And Emma is found at the bottom of the stairs. But when Sophie confesses to Bee that she had relapsed, started using again, she was witness to Emma falling down the stairs to her death. Accident. Huh. OK, 50% solved. But what about David?
Well, as Sophie and Bee fight and struggle under gunpoint, attempting to see her texts – something about a paramour… I don’t know how it’s relevant. Anyway, as she’s trying to look at her phone, she accidentally picks up David’s phone and sees a video of David attempting to pull off the cool maneuver that Greg had done, slashing off the top of a champagne bottle. But instead of elegantly flipping the top off the bottle, he instead manages to slit his own throat, and die there on the porch. All for a TikTok video. So yeah, there actually wasn’t a real murderer at the party. I mean, other than all the other murderers at the party, that is. So, all of the chaos, bloodshed, and mayhem, was literally for nothing.
Bodies Bodies Bodies is a Modern Who Done It Take Down
Let’s just call a spade a spade here… Bodies Bodies Bodies is an extraordinarily vapid movie. Take a pile of rich kids, throw them in a mansion, and give them all a million grudges, and a million more possible murder weapons and see what happens. Bodies takes the standard murder detective movie, and the standard horror movie trope, and then blows them both up by making “murder” number one an accident. So, if Bodies Bodies Bodies is blowing up two different film genres in one deft swipe, why is the movie doing what it’s doing? Well, I think we can presume that no one was taking this movie too seriously when they entered the movie theater. They came for the titillating chaos and not much more. But when the script gets flipped we are treated to something entirely new and different.
Think about it… if the movie were to follow a standard horror movie fare we know within 2 minutes who will survive. It’s Bee, right? She’s the outsider… heck, she brought zucchini bread as a ‘thank you’ for the invite for the love of all that’s good and holy. She doesn’t fit with the rich clique. She is from Eastern Europe, for heaven’s sake. She’s our innocent and she needs to survive their chaos, and murder the murderer. Right? That’s just how this formula works. But instead, she is found out to just be another random murderer in the group. (She is the one that killed Greg… ACTUALLY, she commits the first murder of the group. David died accidentally, and she hammers Greg into oblivion… right?) Better yet? There is no actual ritualistic, or methodical serial killer in the group……… (insert THREE ellipses) besides themselves.
Wait, WHAT? The movie is saying … we are our worst nightmare. We are the moral evil we fear. Not the Dahmer’s of this world, or random cult leader murderers that we prop up as some next level chaos worth fearing as something other. No, what Bodies Bodies Bodies is saying is that not only is there anything to fear from some outside diabolical force, but rather, we are scarier than anything Hollywood, serial killer-esque, or cult religious murder cults, could ever come up with. We shouldn’t fear these outside forces because we are more evil than anything anyone else could ever come up with. Right? Which is an enormous message. Maybe I’m reading into this movie a bit more than was intended? But I really don’t think so.
Each of these individuals are ultra-myopic, ennui induced, adult-children, who are so extraordinarily super selfish… they are hopped-up, and extraordinarily over drugged (both from a prescribed psychotropics standpoint as well as from a recreational standpoint), and hopelessly entitled in every standpoint. And the fact that TikTok is the root cause of this chaos? Strikes me as extraordinarily hilarious. And not an insignificant detail either… this isn’t just a throw away laugh that is happening here.
So, there are several things happening here in this movie. One, is that it’s a take down on the standard who-done-it movie trope and the normal murderer on the loose horror movie trope. Which, is a tired and over used movie template. Secondly, it’s a commentary on the larger problem of social media over saturation in society today. But that is such an extraordinarily tired comment on the characteristic of the zeitgeist of our culture today.
For a teeny-bopper Gen-X/Gen-Y film, it has way more in its head than senseless drug use and arbitrary violence. For an example, check out this thought over on Lithub as they discuss the movie as a hot take on the film industry and society at large:
“These self-absorbed, passive-aggressive, emotionally-stunted, over-medicated zoomers are quick to suspect and turn on one another, and do so in ways that offer copious satirization of the hyper-digitally-literate, fake-woke, pseudo-intellectual fashions of today.”
Final Thoughts on Bodies Bodies Bodies
This is a pretty great film that I probably won’t recommend to anyone in my real life! hahaha. It’s too gratuitous in pretty much every way. And yet, love the handbrake that the film throws at the end. Tells us that there is a lot going on that we were taking for granted from the beginning. And yet, even with all that this movie has going for it… it’s a weird bird. For example… why was Pete Davidson cast in this movie? He’s what? Almost 30? WORSE? What was Lee Pace doing in this movie? He’s 43 year old! Why were these guys cast? Is there something happening there too? The movie opens with Bee and Sophie making out. Two younger women, and is this a comment on the lack of need for male involvement… specifically, older male involvement, in their lives? But the casting was so much older… I think the women in this film are in their early twenties? And then Lee Pace??? What was that?
Anyway, I loved this film. I loved that it was doing something different. I loved that it was blowing itself up, and commenting on the expectations we had of this movie coming in. That we expected little except titillation. Death. Dismemberment and nubile filled gossip. Right? And yet, it decided it was going to do something different. Anyway, high marks on busting expectations here. Kudos! Loved it.
Want other movies like Bodies Bodies Bodies? Ready or Not. Or maybe Under the Silver Lake?