In an extended interview with Fangoria, filmmakers explained to horror fans just how Jennifer's Body fits into the genre. The movie follows a young beauty who, after a botched satanic sacrifice, ends up possessed by a demon with a real taste for boys.
Although Jennifer's Body follows many of the tropes of classic horror movies, it's the filmmakers' maiden voyage into the genre and really isn't all about the gore. Rather, director Karyn Kusama explains, they are looking to strike the right balance between horror, humor, and character:
... you definitely have to walk a fine line between the loose, comic high school relationship moments and the story's more legitimate suspense and horror elements ... what it all boils down to is finding the right emotional hooks between the characters and finding what feels true to the teenagers.
Producer Daniel Dubiecki adds:
This is really a character movie, a relationship film about these two girls.... They were best friends when they were little kids ... Things have changed between them, and they are going through a dynamic where this friendship is coming to an end.
Of course, the movie serves up plenty of gore as well. For a preview of that side of the movie, just check out the still of Jennifer's leftovers accompanying the article. Because of scenes like this, there will be no PG-13 cut of the film, Dubiecki insists.
Still, Kusama says, they tried to take a more subtle approach with some aspects Jennifer's demon:
When she doesn't feed and grows hungry, she starts to physically deteriorate. But because she's Megan Fox — or because she's the famous Jennifer Check of Devil's Kettle, Minnesota — her version of deteriorating involves just starting to look a little bit more like a lot of girls. [Make-up/prosthetics atrist Greg Nicotero] is really good at helping guide us toward a look that's subtle, but definitely different from how Megan appears when she's looking like a million bucks.... There's just a coolness to it, to me that you can watch this beautiful girl at a stage where sometimes her hair is falling out, or her skin isn't perfectly porcelain, or her eyes are kind of bloodshot, or her teeth get a little dirty.
Definitely a complex and ambitious set of goals, but if they can pull it all off, Jennifer's Body may just turn out to be one demon flick whose beauty is more than skin deep.