She may not yet be a household name in the United States, but in her native Netherlands, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” director Halina Reijn is a well-established figure in film, TV, and theater. She’s worked with renowned Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove on international stage productions. The production company she started with fellow Dutch actress (and “Game of Thrones” alum) Carice van Houten, Man Up, developed “Red Light,” an award-winning Dutch/Belgian TV series, which Reijn created, co-wrote, and starred in.
Reijn also collaborated with van Houten on her 2019 directorial debut, “Instinct,” an intense psychological thriller about a relationship between a psychiatrist (van Houten) and a sex offender (Marwan Kenzari) she’s evaluating for probation. “Instinct” was the official Dutch entry for Best International Feature at the 92nd Academy Awards.
“Instinct” brought Reijn to the attention of A24, who thought she’d be perfect to direct “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” at the time a spec script the studio had acquired from “Cat Person” author Kristen Roupenian. For Reijn, it was an exciting, but scary opportunity. “I basically gave up my life and career in Dutch movies and theater to make this film, and it was a risky jump into the American dream for me,” she says.
Reijn worked with playwright Sarah DeLappe (“The Wolves”) to flesh out Roupenian’s original script. Their partnership led to fruitful results. DeLappe’s facility with group dynamics and the language of young adults powers the story of a rich, backstabbing Gen-z friend group who hunker down at a mansion to ride out a hurricane, only to have their drug-fueled revelry interrupted by a series of gruesome deaths.
Taking place entirely in a single location, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” introduces new-ish couple Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova), who show up to Sophie’s best friend David’s (Pete Davidson) hurricane party at his family’s palatial home. Also, there is David’s girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), their friends Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) and Alice (Rachel Sennott), and Alice’s much older boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace).
As the storm rages outside, the group records TikToks, drinks, and rails lines of cocaine. The recently sober Sophie decides to shake things up by starting a game of Bodies Bodies Bodies. With the lights out, a designated “killer” stalks and marks a victim, who plays dead until the other players discover their body and determine who the killer is. When the storm cuts the power, and actual corpses start piling up, the already tense relationships start breaking down into blame and long-held grudges.
Reijn says it was important that the cultural callouts and generation-specific language in the film feel authentic to her characters, not like a thin caricature of Gen Z stereotypes. “I want them to feel seen without feeling made fun of,” she says, noting that ultimately, the themes in “Bodies Bodies Bodies” transcend age, race, nationality, and gender.
“In the end, this film is about group behavior, and I think that’s universal,” she says. “Wanting to belong to any group of people, whether its friends or a career or religion, that’s intimidating and seductive at the same time.”
This film has had a few audiences already—I first saw it at SXSW in March. What has the response felt like to you? Has anything about the early reactions surprised you?
SXSW was a defining moment. At that point, I’d worked on the film until a week before the festival. I had no clue how audiences would respond. You know, it’s a murder mystery, and you have to pull that off. Also, coming from the arthouse world, the reaction you get is people are intellectually pleased, but they don’t make any sound. I was happy about the way people were reacting and laughing. It’s been lovely and encouraging, it really surprised me.
We also had a screening at TAA, my agency, and there were all these famous actors there, like Colin Firth, and I thought, “These people aren’t Gen Z! They’re not going to get it!” They were so quiet beforehand, and I thought it would be a disaster, but they had great, loud reactions and laughter as well. I’m so glad the movie touches people in that way. Of course, the thing I’m most proud of is when young people like it because I’m trying to make their world believable and authentic.
How does Dutch youth culture compare to American youth culture? Do you think the behavior of the characters in the film, their obsession with social media, translates internationally?
It was a little intimidating for me to make a film about youth culture in another country. But I did a lot of research, and the main difference…I mean, it was kind of horror to dive into. In my country, education is practically free. I grew up on a commune, and I never would ever have gotten the career I have in my country here in the United States. I was shocked by how rough it is for young people here, but that’s also fertile ground for drama and, I guess, comedy.
Dutch kids, also, just Gen Z growing up with social media and the internet as part of their lives, they have access to other cultures and other countries, so there’s lots of blending. Dutch teenagers don’t want to read Dutch anymore; they all read and speak English. They use a lot of the same terms that show up in the film, like “gaslighting” and “triggering.”
So, on the language note, the script includes a lot of terms associated with Gen Z—a couple of which you just mentioned—how does the movie comment on their use?
Sarah DeLappe and I, both coming from theater, doing all these huge classical plays, you learn that these writers bring so much awareness to every word they write. We wanted to bring that same level of awareness and consciousness. Gen Z is constantly aware of things, they’re always in front of cameras, they have that meta-perspective.
So, the way we use that language in the movie, it’s a comment, but it’s also witnessing that and how funny that is, and being aware of our own behaviors. It’s not mocking this generation, but more the time we’re living in, where we use words as weapons without considering what they really mean. Like, when Alice (Rachel Sennott) says she has body dysmorphia, do you really have body dysmorphia, or do you just have a complicated relationship with your body? Have we really lived the experiences we’re talking about? I hope our film is honoring that and showing how it is, as well as the gray areas that are also there.
Most of this movie takes place after a power cut, so you were mostly filming in the dark. I was so impressed to see how much of the lighting, which is really effective, comes from the cast themselves, and items they’re wearing or carrying. How do you block something like Myha’la Herrold’s character, Jordan, and her headlamp, where it adds so much to the scene, but has the potential to look terrible if it’s not done right?
I’m so glad you noticed the headlamp! Obviously, it was a huge challenge to know it’s going to be in the dark. The first thing I came up with was the hurricane party, so there would be a reason to have all that stuff in the house because they’re preparing for something. You’d have (Lee Pace’s character) Greg’s go bag, and that would make sense. We could make Rachel Sennott into a lighthouse with all her glow sticks.
What was really hard was that the actors had to light each other. In the case of the headlamp, sometimes Myha’la would have to put her head in a certain direction to light the other actors. She was excellent at that because she’s such a technical actor. The limitations became a strength for me and my DP. Those light sources, the emergency lights in the house, it all helped to give a certain style. It took months of preparation because you don’t want to make the same lighting plan for every space. You want enough ideas that it creates a variety. That’s mainly thanks to my DP, Jasper Wolf.
You’d also worked with him on your previous feature, “Instinct,” right?
Yes! He also worked on a film I recommend everyone check out, a South American film called “Monos.” There’s one shot where he drops himself into a river with the rest of the cast, and you can see him really doing it because of how the camera moves. He’s very European in that sense that “we’re going to make it real.” On “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” we hardly used any extra lights.
I’m sure a large part of that planning had to involve the house you used to shoot the film in since it’s the only location. How much of your filming process adapted to the space you were using? How did your background in theater help you plan that out?
It was my dream to find a location like that. Sarah and I created the ideas on the page, but, you know, how are you gonna find a place that has all those rooms? I was so enthusiastic when we found this crazy mansion outside New York. I wanted a house that Donald Trump would like, a metaphor for the American dream and greed. The advantage was everyone could be there, actors could have their own rooms, and we had a motel nearby. It helped create this theater feeling where we could use it as a stage, and it helped the actors become a real friend group.
You’ve mentioned working with Sarah DeLappe a couple of times, and her play “The Wolves,” this film and recent shows like “Yellowjackets” and “The Wilds” feel like parts of an interesting trend of stories about female friend group dynamics that are much more complicated than the examples I grew up with. What do you think accounts for that emergence?
I think it’s finally our time a little bit. Obviously, we’re not all the way there yet, but we’re getting some sort of space. It doesn’t have to always be about being strong and good people. We can be complicated, messy, nasty, and weak, but on our own terms.
I think it’s starting to become that way for a lot of underrepresented groups. Everyone has a little more space, though there’s still a huge struggle to fight, and it’s important to make those characters layered. There is no good and evil. We’re all beasts and good at the same time, all light and dark. That needs to be there in every character.
“Bodies Bodies Bodies” opens theatrically, Friday, August 5.
