Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
Director: Halina Reijn
Screenwriter: Sarah Delappe
Starring: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, Pete Davidson
Halina Reijn’s third feature, Bodies Bodies Bodies, brings together a sharp ensemble cast to deliver a comedy-horror that skewers contemporary youth culture while delivering tense, darkly funny moments. Featuring performers familiar from a range of indie and mainstream projects, the film uses a single-night setting—a hurricane party at a remote mansion—to unpack themes of privilege, social media performance, and the fragility of friendships under pressure.
The film opens with Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova) arriving at an isolated house behind gated security for a storm weekend hosted by David (Pete Davidson). The group of recent graduates, flush with money and internet confidence, intends to ride out the hurricane with drugs, games, and bravado. Tensions simmer beneath the surface, and when a murder-themed party game turns real, suspicion and paranoia quickly spiral into chaos as the storm knocks out the power. Bodies Bodies Bodies uses the claustrophobic environment of the house, and the darkness of the blackout, to build dread and expose character flaws.
Cinematographer Jesper Tøffner (credited as Jesper Wolf on some releases) makes effective use of limited light—predominantly phone torches and tangled glow sticks—to create a realistic, urgent visual style. The fractured lighting reinforces the film’s themes: in a world obsessed with curated appearances and constant online connection, sudden isolation exposes true selves. The glow sticks and improvised lighting also allow moments of physical comedy to coexist with the mounting fear, maintaining the film’s balance between satire and horror.
Rachel Sennott’s portrayal of Alice is one of the film’s most memorable performances. Her delivery channels the clipped, performative rhythms of online discourse—snappy one-liners and exaggerated indignation—turning real-time internet culture into cinematic satire. The characters’ reactions, often resembling viral hot takes on social media, amplify the tension as they misread events, accuse one another, and cultivate drama with every notification and keystroke.
Casting choices reinforce the satire. Many of the actors have roots in indie cinema or a strong online presence, which helps the film feel authentic in its portrayal of a generation fluent in trends and performative activism. The partygoers’ ease with TikTok dances and throwback club anthems contrasts sharply with Bee’s quieter, outsider presence. Bakalova’s Bee—nervous, modest, and bearing homemade zucchini bread—stands apart from the affluent group, highlighting class and cultural divides without heavy-handedness. The film does not offer a deep sociological treatise on inequality, but it uses these dynamics to give emotional grounding to the characters and their conflicts.
Structurally, Bodies Bodies Bodies resembles a modern Lord of the Flies: a contained group whose civility unravels under crisis. The plot examines distrust, performative empathy, and the impulse to weaponize identity in moments of panic. As the night progresses, the characters increasingly look to social frames—labels, viral logic, and outrage—to make sense of events. That reflex becomes part of the film’s critique: the internet-trained habit of seeing every incident through a lens of opinion and performance, often at the expense of nuance.
In the broader context of contemporary horror, Bodies Bodies Bodies participates in a growing subgenre that uses social media and influencer culture as subject matter. The film joins other recent works that interrogate how digital-era anxieties reshape classical horror tropes—masked figures, paranoia, and the desire for spectacle—by reframing them through content culture and livestreamed attention-seeking. Reijn’s film accomplishes this with a clear-eyed, frequently hilarious sensibility that mines both scares and satire.
At its core, Bodies Bodies Bodies knows its audience and plays to it. The film understands the rhythms of Gen Z communication—the clipped sarcasm, the viral outrage, the performative solidarity—and translates those elements into a story that is both entertaining and pointed. Halina Reijn demonstrates a confident directorial voice in mixing comedic timing with suspenseful pacing, suggesting she is a filmmaker worth watching in both horror and dark comedy.
If you’re interested in a movie that both pokes fun at online culture and delivers brisk, suspenseful set-pieces, Bodies Bodies Bodies will satisfy. Its horror leans into psychological and situational dread rather than gore, while the comedy—rooted in the cast’s performances and the screenplay’s satirical edge—keeps the film lively even when the tension peaks.
Score: 22/24
Written by Morgan Barr
You can follow Morgan Barr on Twitter – @Barr_Grylls
