Bodies Bodies Bodies

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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In college (I got a B.A. at Stetson), those of us in the Art Department always threw a “Welcome the Hurricane” party when faced with severe tropical storms. Probably not the best place, but we huddled in the rickety building (since replaced) and tuned in the weather channels. Sometimes we would dig out the Ouija Board, other times we would play games. Hide and Seek, Tag, silly stuff like that.

Nobody died.

That’s not the case in a new movie called “Bodies Bodies Bodies.” It’s playing at Tropic Cinema.

In it, a group of rich 20-somethings throw a hurricane party at a spooky family mansion. Laughs and giggles … until they play a game called Bodies Bodies Bodies, (hence the movie’s title). In this murder-in-the-dark game someone is the “secret killer,” with everyone else trying to escape a “deadly” fate. But what would happen if the killer is playing for real?

Sure this is a blend of “House on Haunted Hill” with “Scream” or “Slumber Party Massacre.” One critic described it as “ ‘And Then There Were None’ staged by John Cassavetes for the age of Instagram.”

No surprise when bodies start turning up, “setting off a paranoid and dangerous chain of events.”

You know the drill.

But not so fast …

… this movie will actually keep you guessing almost to its end credits.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 88% rating and called it an “uncommonly well-done whodunnit.”

Directed by Halina Reijn in her English-language debut, this satirical black comedy horror film (that’s a mouthful) has assembled a mansion-full of attractive young victims. The cast includes Amelia Stenberg (“The Hunger Games,” “Dear Evan Hansen”), Maria Bakalova (a standout in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”), Myha’la Herrold (Broadway’s “The Book of Mormon”), Chase Sui Wonders (TV’s “Generation”), Rachel Sennot (“Shiva Baby”), Lee Pace (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Captain Marvel”), Conner O’Malley (“Late Night With Seth Myers” writer), and – yes – Kim Kardashian’s ex-boyfriend Pete Davidson (“Saturday Night Live,” “The King of Staten Island”).

This is billed as “a movie that claims to understand how Gen-Z treats societal topics.…” Generation Z, colloquially known as Zoomers, are those young people born between the 1990s to the 2010s. The cast mostly fulfills that promise, with everybody in their 20s (except for Pace and O’Malley).

Deadline Hollywood praised the cast, saying they are “a joy to watch, even if their characters are insufferable.”

Scary, yes. Funny, yes. But there’s more lurking beneath this superficial appraisal. The movie is really a psychological study of friendship in the digital age.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com