While a relative unknown winning an Academy Award for their first feature isn’t an overly irregular development, immediately following it up with a gonzo supernatural horror sure is. For Diablo Cody, Jennifer’s Body ended up setting the tone for her short-term Hollywood future a great deal more than Juno did, for better or worse.
After exploding onto the scene by winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, the writer’s next project was one that generated immense scrutiny and anticipation. When it was announced that genre veteran Karyn Kusama would be directing Cody’s script with tabloid darling and headline-grabber extraordinaire Megan Fox in the lead role, hype went through the roof.
In the end, Jennifer’s Body was a modest success at the box office after doubling its $16 million production budget in ticket sales, but reviews could very generously be described as tepid. Even now, it only holds respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 46 and 35 percent from critics and audiences, but that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.
You don’t have to spend too long on the internet to find someone willing to defend the movie to the death, and over the last decade and change it’s gone on to secure certifiable cult classic status, with a recent Reddit thread the latest in a long line of examples that find Jennifer’s Body being held up as an unsung, undervalued, and altogether enduring gem.
The story may find Fox’s possessed title character wrestling with a demon that’s assumed control of her body and created an insatiable desire for human flesh, but the jet-black and wondrously acerbic film didn’t need to strike a bargain with the devil to ensure it became cemented as a forever favorite.