Bodies Bodies Bodies

When a group of 20-somethings stay at a remote mansion for a party during a hurricane, a mean-spirited party game goes very wrong when a dead body turns up, with more on the way, as frenemies become enemies in the hunt to find the killer hiding among them.

Being an old man, who back in the day used to wear an onion tied to his belt, as was the style at the time, I gotta say, it’s hard to tell if Bodies Bodies Bodies is an accurate portrayal of Gen Z, or if it’s a viciously barded parody of Gen Z.

I suppose it’s probably… a little from column A, and a little from column B.

So anyway, a bunch of spoiled overgrown children, their significant others in tow, gather at one of their parents’ houses for a pajama jammy jam during a hurricane. As the day wears on and the alcohol is consumed, the emotions begin to wear thin and a myriad of angry recriminations fly wildly about between the lines of coke, which then leads to the best decision possible, as they decide to play the titular party game.

The rules for the game known as Bodies Bodies Bodies in the film is pretty similar to a bunch of different types of game. The goal is to find out who is the "killer” without being “killed.” The killer is choosen by drawing slips of paper blindly from a hat. The slips are all secret, if your slip has an X, then you are the killer.

To play, you turn off the lights, and everyone scatters and stealthily moves around, while the killer is free to kill by tapping people on their shoulder. Any player who is killed must lie down where they were caught. If another player stumbles across their "body," they must yell out, "bodies bodies bodies," and the lights can be turned back on. The still-living players now have to decide who the killer is.

The dead players must be silent.

If the group can decide on who they believe to be the killer, they can ask that person to reveal their status. If that person is the killer, the other players win, and the game can start a new round. If not, then the lights turn back off, and you keep going until the killer is caught or all the other players are dead.

So, the kids in the film decide to play this game, and people start to die… for real.

The coke-fueled paranoia starts to get the best of the survivors as they try to figure who is responsible for these deaths, all while avoiding being the next person to die. Y’see, it’s a real life version of Bodies Bodies Bodies, but the stakes are much higher! Oh, the hints and allegations, people, the hints and allegations! Everyone is so tense and shouting! After that… it’s nothing but bodies, bodies, bodies, yo. Hence the title. In the end, the kids all learn a little bit about themselves… and each other, and also that the real killer was inside of all of them all along…

This film an unexpected good time. I really liked it. It’s funny. It’s brutally pointed. The cast is great. The tension is great. The lunacy is so well escalated, and the end reveal is absolutely perfect. Just a brilliant cherry on top.

Definitely check it out.