On the eighteenth day of Halloween: BODIES BODIES BODIES (2022)
This is a lament for Mr Virgo Moon (Lee Pace) in Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). He fought in a contentious and brutal war in the Middle East, to have his very American arrested development come face to face with the apocalyptic behaviors of teenage girls. Horror is being a veteran. Horror is also being a teenage girl. These two horrors meet in Bodies Bodies Bodies in an atrocious and haunting way.
I have pressing questions about this movie like: Do the kids these days actually talk in this awareness-speak? Or is this the product of an older observer who wrote their intensely understanding dialogue?
It doesn’t end up mattering.
We have a bunch of drug-mixing youngsters with troubled histories in a mansion alone during a hurricane.
The one adult, Mr Virgo Moon, is a 40-something Iraq war veteran who is fucking a 19-year-old. It’s disturbing even before the proper horror begins.
And Pete Davidson is perfectly cast here, leaning into his jackassery persona, but also displaying the soulful side that made The King of Staten Island uniquely poignant.
And this story ends well for absolutely nobody as paranoia intersects with drug abuse and the chaos of a natural disaster. I cry when I rewatch this. It’s just so sad. And rending. And all so avoidable. The ending is absolutely staggering.
But I live in Florida, where versions of this film take place in real life, albeit with a smaller body count. Hurricane parties are totally a thing here, replete with copious drugs and debauchery. Which also makes it an oddly real film from my perspective.
This film pops up often in my thoughts. Let me know if it does the same for yours after you see it.
✨Arm Dab/5 stars. Highly recommend not playing with real samurai swords.✨