Jennifer drags Needy to a bar where ‘cool band’ Low Shoulder are playing, only to be swept into a minivan by the indie rock Satanists after a fire has broken out and burned down the bar (incidentally killing a bunch of people). Later that night, Jen shows up at Needy’s place covered in blood and vomits black, CGI-spiky oil on the floor like an X-File with PMS (a phenomenon Jennifer describes as a myth created by ‘the boy-controlled media’). It’s not confirmed by a flashback-within-a-flashback for a reel or so, but the premise is hardly a mystery: the band, eager to make it big in the business, planned to sacrifice a virgin in the woods and the overconfident lead singer Nikolai (Adam Brody) mistakenly picked out slut Jennifer instead. The victim survived the ritual to be transformed or possessed into a demon girl who needs to rip the life out of guys (and perhaps girls) to stay looking like a teen pin-up (as opposed to ‘an ordinary girl’). There isn’t much character change, since Jennifer was a callous, self-involved bitch even before becoming a demon – which means the friends-fall-out aspect of the movie doesn’t cut as deeply as it might if there were even a few hints that Jennifer might once have at least appreciated Needy as more than a sidekick-cum-slave. Of course, the demon Jen shows peculiar malice in targeting guys Needy likes, with the boyfriend as her ultimate snack goal (Chip is another on-the-nose name, since he’s a bargaining token or a symbolic prize).
Whereas Heathers was an incisive, zeitgeist-skewering portrait of teenage America played as black comedy, this is just a zippy gun horror movie with some smart lines and a few footnotes. Low Shoulder become a success with a horrible song (‘Through the Trees’) which becomes associated with the burned-down-bar tragedy and subsequent Devil’s Kettle deaths, only to get their just desserts in a montage sequence that plays under the end credits (actually, the funniest, most aptly horrible scene in the film). The climax is an unholy bitch-fight set on the night of the big formal, which has had a Carrie-like set-up but quickly segues into Needy and Jennifer in bombshell outfits ripping each other up in a picturesque derelict swimming pool. Here, director Karyn Kusama recovers some of the Girlfight chops she lost in Aeon Flux (even the publicity notes can’t get away with calling that a ‘cult film’) to deliver Raimi-style kinetic/disgusting horror action. There’s a mainstreaminess to the film that makes it work as slightly demanding entertainment, but perhaps keeps it from fully engaging with its subject matter the way that scruffier indies like Ginger Snaps or Teeth do.